The Music of Bees Quotes

“Disrupt old patterns. Find a path out of the old way of doing things to forge a new one. It might feel uncomfortable, but the only way out was through. Things needed to feel different to become different, she said.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“He breathed in the sweet aroma of fresh beeswax and fermented honey and felt the thrum of a thousand tiny bodies vibrating in unison. It hit him in the heart like a drug. The reverberation ran through his hands and up into his arms. His chest ached, and he thought his heart might explode. It was a calming weight, an invisible touchstone, a “You Are Here” marker.” - Eileen Garvin”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Place yourself before a hive, and see the indefatigable energy of these industrious veterans, toiling along with their heavy burdens, side by side with their more youthful compeers . . . Let the cheerful hum of their busy old age inspire you with better resolutions, and teach you how much nobler it is to die with harness on, in the active discharge of the duties of life.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Alice walked more slowly than usual and tried to act like she wasn’t.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“men to whom bullying was a standard management style. Testosterone poisoning, she and her friend Nancy joked. And yet it was women who were called hysterical. They were like little children, these angry men, she thought. Always throwing their tantrums.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Sorrow released a person from common constraints, and in their grief they could be their true, bald selves. If others chose to witness that, to truly see others, well, it changed everything.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“beyond spraying the orchards, which was bad enough. It was a county-wide project that covered hundreds of square miles and would start at the beginning of summer. It meant that SupraGro’s pesticides would be sprayed on every road, park, school, empty lot, and culvert in the entire county. It might kill the noxious”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Why was Harry a passenger in the vehicle that was his life?”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Then he heard the deep, pulsating call of an owl throbbing through the woods around him. Harry could not have said which tree the great bird sat in, as the call seemed to be everywhere at once. The hoot came again, and Harry felt it settle into his chest and fill his heart. A child of the suburbs, he had never been so close to such wildness and had not known it would stir such feeling in him. He would have called it happiness if someone had asked him. But there was nobody to do so.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“This situation was nothing new to Alice. She was a Holtzman, after all. German-American, rational, she always planned ahead and thought things through like her parents had taught her. She tried to anticipate what might go awry and work in advance to avoid hiccups. She knew most other people were not as conscientious. She often found herself waiting for others to catch up with her thinking, having fallen short before they even started.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees

“Harry had no reasonable explanation. How could he describe the paralyzing set of questions a new situation would present? What was the best route to drive to work in the morning? What was he supposed to wear? Did people bring a lunch, or did they go out? What if he had to use the bathroom, like, really use the bathroom? He couldn’t ask anyone those questions, so it was easier to come up with white lies: the pay was bad, the hours were lousy, the manager seemed like a jerk.”
― Eileen Garvin, The Music of Bees