Hester Quotes

“But there's another kind of strength we've got...It comes from knowing the difference between who you are and who they think you are.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“...history isn't what's written or told. History is hidden away in dark corners and shadows...”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“They say witch, but what do they mean? Witch is a reason to kill you; witch might be someone to heal you; witch can be the Devil, or witch can be a woman so beautiful she makes you lose your sense. They've got so many ways of calling you a witch, they just change it to how it suits them.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“What’s true is often hidden from sight—religious fervor disguises cruelty, dark desires hide behind a mask of conformity.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“I lived in a world of magic and color then—my mother’s voice a sapphire stream flecked with emeralds, my father’s a soft caramel. In summer I ran barefoot through the valleys with my cousins and kin and saw their voices rise up in vibrant wisps of yellow and gold. The wind was sometimes fierce pink, and the sound of the waterfall on rocks glistened silver.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“When my fingers are moving, my mind is free...I've stitched through sadness and through fear; I've stitched through joy, trepidation and hope. And so I find comfort the only way I know how: I work.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“It is how the world is, and I tried to teach my daughter this as well: you must love what is close and true; you must look to the present and future and not to the past.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“when women bind themselves to passion and love? Why do men fixate on the past when every woman I have ever known is trying to remedy the present while she builds hope for what is to come?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“And if I told it right, she would learn everything that I know about love and desire and the colors, about this world and the hidden world, about the man with the red-and-gold voice who was almost the ruin of me. And she would know how I survived.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Any man who owns or sells another man is cruel, Isobel. Can you imagine it otherwise?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“To clothe a woman is to hide her failings and frailties,” Auntie Aileen told me. “A dressmaker is talented with the needle, but above all she is a secret keeper.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Reading brings the Devil into a girl’s mind too easily.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Folks fail you even when you love them-- leave you when you need them. But you've got to be strong even with all that-- you hear me?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“The letter A is red,” I say.
“Red like an apple?” He scribbles something in his notebook.
“No,” I say. “A is a scarlet letter.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“You’re foolish, but you’re brave and strong—that’s what you’ve got to remember”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“All of us standing, sitting, praying, and living with the weight of all that came before. All of us holding secret longings and desires.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“The best dresses offer secrets but no surprises,” Aileen said when we were alone. “Little pockets and camouflage for flaws with no hint of what’s hidden beneath the flare of a bell sleeve, the bones of a corset, or the inset of a shorting.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Why do men bind themselves to a flag and a nation when women bind themselves to passion and love? Why do men fixate on the past when every woman I have ever known is trying to remedy the present while she builds hope for what is to come?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“But there’s another kind of strength we’ve got,” Mercy goes on. “I’m talking about me, my folks. It comes from knowing the difference between who you are and who they think you are.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Why do men bind themselves to a flag and a nation when women bind themselves to passion and love?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Finally, she went to the shelf and found the book with the scarlet A on its cover.
"Is this is about you?" she asked.
I remembered everything, from the moment I saw him on the dock to the moment when he pulled back my hair and raised up a pained longing that no one had ever unleashed. I gave myself to him and if I told it to my daughter, then she would know my secrets.
And if I told it truthfully, she would know my pain. And if I told it right, she would learn everything I know about love and desire and the colors; about this world and the hidden world. About the man with the red and gold voice who was almost the ruin of me. And she would know how I survived.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Why do men fixate on the past when every woman I have ever known is trying to remedy the present while she builds hope for what is to come?”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Love rarely trumps the darkness in men's souls.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Synesthesia is a unique sensory phenomenon that affects less than ten percent of the world’s population. A person with synesthesia—or “joined perception”—often experiences multiple sensory responses when only one sense has been stimulated. Many creative people experience this comingling of senses: the painter Kandinsky saw colors when he listened to music, and the musician Billie Eilish reports a wide array of synesthetic experiences that include color, sound, texture, and temperature.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“When a legacy haunts a family the echoes reverberate even if no one hears them.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“They say witch, but what do they mean?” Mercy muses. “Witch is a reason to kill you; witch might be someone to heal you; witch can be the Devil, or witch can be a woman so beautiful she makes you lose your sense. They’ve got so many ways of calling you a witch, they just change it to how it suits them.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“it. I will smile down on you from heaven if I am lucky enough to go there, and you will feel my love when the sun shines on your face.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“noticed. That’s when you use your power. Sometimes you got to act like you are nothing—so long as you remember that it’s a lie. So long as you remember you’re as strong as you believe you are.” Salem, 1693 Tituba, little Dorcas Good, Sarah Carrier, and ninety-three other falsely accused women, men, and children stumble out of Salem and Boston jails when the court of Oyer and Terminer is suspended by the governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Judge Hathorne watches them limp back into Salem—the orphaned children, the widows, the daughter who testified against her mother. He rages at the magistrates who recant their verdicts and at the accusers—Betty Parris and Ann Putnam first among them—who apologize for the terror they wrought. “The victims believed Satan was here and I still believe it,” Hathorne tells his wife. “You”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“It’s not that we are witches or faeries or that we deny God. It is that we are more beautiful and strong together than apart.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester

“Mam could not have known where my life would take me, but she understood that every woman will face peril and hardship—and that it’s best if we keep our strengths and skills close and strong.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester