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1 " Some folks are forced to the edges by their difference. (...) But 'tis at the edges that they find their power. "
― Hannah Kent , The Good People
2 " Poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life. "
― Hannah Kent , Burial Rites
3 " Believe me, Nóra. An old broom knows the dirty corners best "
4 " Endless days of dark indoors and hateful glances are enough to set a rime on anyone’s bones. "
5 " I prefer a story to a prayer. "
6 " Together they listed the people they had known who had died on the mountains. A bleak conversation to have, thought Margrét, but there was some comfort in talking about death aloud, as though in naming things, you could prevent them from happening. "
7 " People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd. "
8 " It was not hard to believe a beautiful woman capable of murder, Margret thought.As it says in the sagas, Opt er flago i fogru skinni. A witch often has fair skin. "
9 " I was worst to the one I loved best. "
10 " Blíndur er bóklaus ma∂ur. Blind is a man without a book. "
11 " Sometimes, people never stood a chance in the beginning. Or they might have made a mistake. When people start saying things like she must be a bad mother because of that mistake." .... "It's not fair. People claim to know you through the things you've done and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. "
12 " How hidden the heart, Nance thought. How frightened we are of being known, and yet how desperately we long for it. "
13 " Immagino che siamo tutti come fiammelle di candele accese, scintillanti, tremule nell'oscurità e poi immagino l'ululato del vento, e nel silenzio della stanza sent dei passi che vengono a soffiare su di me e a ridurre la mia vita a un refolo di fumo grigio. Mi dissolverò nell'aria e nella notte. Ci spegneranno tutti, uno a uno, finchè non rimarrà altro che la loro luce, e solo quella vedranno. Dove sarò allora? "
― Hannah Kent
14 " To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things. "
15 " I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It’s written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink. "
16 " It’s not fair. People claim to know you through the things you’ve done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. "
17 " Any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel. "
18 " They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say “Agnes” and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there. "
19 " I don't want to be remembered, I want to be here! "
20 " The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe. "
