Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch Quotes

“You can’t discover what’s true based on how many people think it’s true.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“That's what life is: a bunch of thorns, and a berry.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I try my best to like people. To expect good from them. If you see someone as a monster, it is as good as attaching a real horn to them and poking them with a hot metal poker.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“He saw delphinium as I saw delphinium. As a plant capable of good and evil both. As a plant that required the knowledge and good intentions of man.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“The strawberry sets its seeds on the outside, for all to see. A strawberry has nothing to hide.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I also felt that I had failed Hans in failing to save his child. Poor Susanna, in that house with me, but really alone. She mended every garment in the home, even those of the children. LittleHammer survived. But she had become cold and aloof. I understood her—to love others is to suffer.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I was certain she would recover. She had so much strength in her, and spirit. I started making some pickles; I was thinking that many months ahead. The cucumbers were so green and compelling, and I carefully cut away bruises. But Maruschl was gone before the next Tuesday. The baby Katharina died as well within the month. To hear Susanna weeping in an unspeakable misery saying, My baby, my baby, was worse than my own losses. I was willing to give everything and anything to bring the children back. As we waited for Hans to return, there was a part of me that held out the hope that when he returned, so they would too. I dreamed of walking hand in hand with Maruschl. I dreamed even of us arguing, of her growing angry with me, or disappointed, I wanted that for her much more than I wanted to live.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I have in my past had trying, even life-threatening attention paid to very small and minor actions of my own. I've nothing to feel guilty or secretive about in life. But a fear of being misunderstood has stayed with me for a long time, a lifetime.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I thought people were telling stories when they were telling the truth. Now I tell the truth and get accused of telling stories.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“When Maruschl was near me, I felt as if I were wearing an emerald; at times I was anxious that my good fortune was so visible outside of the home.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I have work to do, I have other obligations, whereas they - this is their work. They're the guild of rumormongers. The society of theft-by-accusation.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I wouldn't have thought anything of it, but, for some reason, this day I saw that I was walking to the end of my life, and they were walking into their bloom. They were walking toward the center of their lives, and I was walking toward my own perimeter.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Being alive at my age is like being woken from a grave and walking the earth to see the alien world of my descendants.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“If you see someone as a monster, it is as good as attaching a real horn to them and poling them with a hot metal poker.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Some people worry about being born under an unlucky star. I don't. I worry about being born in an unlucky place.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“We should never forget to honor sage. Even when it fails us.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“There are two things a woman must do alone: she does her own believing and her own dying.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“If faith is worth anything, shouldn’t it make us not fear death?”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“When someone loves you, they stand by.” But why did I say that, when I knew that wasn’t true? Hearts and alliances shift all the time, for reasons no better than the weather.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I also now have no interest in close observation of the world as it is around me.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I suspect the only thing I would be interested in reading would be a history. But I’m told histories are hated, which is not surprising. People prefer to make it up themselves”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I have work to do, I have other obligations, whereas they—this is their work. They’re the guild of rumormongers. The society of theft-by-accusation. People are stupid, sure, they’re ignorant, yes, they’re greedy, okay—but these people are fine with basically murdering her if it suits them.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Though I had often contemplated how and when I would die, I had been certain my death would be a happy one. I had not always felt so open to death, but once I had seen each of the children stepping into their adult lives, married, working, I sometimes pictured death as a package that would be left at my doorstep, that I would step into the gift box and that would be my gentle end.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Do you understand that any false testimony you knowingly give will provoke God’s great anger in your earthly life and will deliver your soul unto Satan upon your death?”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“I’ve never understood the complexities of church thinking. They should leave the details to God.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“It is a common misconception that all children are beautiful and full of spirit. They aren’t. Some are fearful, or aggressive, or aloof, or selfish. Some are wonderful but unreachable and private. I have known and cared for and loved many small people. I petted the forehead”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“The voting is silly,” I said. “You can’t discover what’s true based on how many people think it’s true.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“...to love others is to suffer.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“That was a courtesy due to anyone. One must stand by everyone, not only the saints.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch

“Scudding is calming work, as it requires all of my attention to not let the knife slip. When I do it, I feel the steady purpose a cat must feel when bathing itself with its coarse tongue. Some of my most peaceful hours have been spent in this way. Outside there could be lightning, wars, or a festival and it would be all the same and nothing to me.”
― Rivka Galchen, Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch