The Baker's Secret Quotes

“No deception lasts forever. Truth rises like good bread dough.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“If you want to know your worth in this world, make a list of the people who will starve when you die. Who”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Fear, they learned, did not live in the heart or mind. It inhabited the stomach like a bad oyster. There was nothing to do but endure it.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“If you see God,” she said finally, “ask Him why He stopped loving us.” Emma”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Was there always to be someone who, by comparison, made your circumstances seem fortunate?”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“A tale in which one is mortified does not bear repeating.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Perhaps slavery is harder for a person who has known freedom. Perhaps it does not matter. The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“All through those years of war, the bread tasted of humiliation.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“When Emma was fifteen Uncle Ezra had taught her reduction, boiling a full pot of beef or chicken stock down to a quarter cup of spectacular concentrated flavor. Now she understood that there was another kind of reduction, and she had allowed it to happen to her: living made small, a way of life diminished and humiliated.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Maybe it was that simple: she helped the hungry, she fed an animal. One creature’s weed was another creature’s breakfast, and thus could the village be fed. “All”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“A man could be outwardly obedient, but tardiness revealed his inner determination, proof that slavery affects only the body. It does not include possession of the heart. The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“The rest of the people depended on their gardens and the occupier's paltry rations. Everything else, the army took for itself. The young soldiers looked ruddy and pale, while the middle commanders developed paunches from too much local Camembert. The villagers grew gaunt meanwhile. The women's breasts losing fullness. The men's arms hanging flaccid. Emma's solution was to bake illicit bread.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Wars are always fought by poor folk, on behalf of the rich folk.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Through self-possession, she was denying him whatever it was he wanted. She considered silence an eloquent form of rebellion.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Another, with an army marching in neat rows: ABANDONED CITIZENS, TRUST IN THE PROTECTORS OF JUSTICE AND ORDER.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“From time to time they would cast their wreckage down, tumbling tin caskets that caused destruction so casual she wondered if these pilots might not be enemies after all:”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“The guttural ruled the elegant, the command replaced persuasion, the shout overwhelmed the subtle.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Did Emmanuelle feel afraid? Of course. No one in the village was immune. Fear, they learned, did not live in the heart or mind. It inhabited the stomach like a bad oyster. There was nothing to do but endure it. Neither could anyone deny it, because everyone had witnessed what the occupying army did to Uncle Ezra.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“She hoisted the basket of laundry, heading into the house and the ever more appealing prospect of her pillow. The moon threw shadows across the yard, a painter expert exclusively in the palette of gray and blue.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“My mother died halfway when they shot my father. Then almost halfway more, after what the soldiers did to her. Today was the last little part. I have been waiting for it.” The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Perhaps that was one of the flaws of the faith: life’s pleasures were all sins, as if the senses were the enemy of the spirit, the body its soul’s adversary.”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Are you with the Resistance?” “No. I am simply trying to survive, and to help those I can.” Fleur”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Some days, the bread turned out perfectly. The dough was responsive, the oven consistent, the results superior. Some days, events conspired to help Emma’s purposes succeed. That morning she felt the slightest sensation of ease, of generosity. Perhaps”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“Romantic memories were an indulgence she could not afford. Washing”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“The memory still made her blush, though in the many months since then, the thrill in her heart had been replaced entirely by longing. On”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret

“If God exists, He is resting comfortably on the ocean’s far shore, reclining in plump chairs beside our so-called Allies, who have perfected the art of watching us suffer and doing nothing about it.” The”
― Stephen P. Kiernan, The Baker's Secret