Home > Author > Kathleen Kent
1 " Sharing secrets is the way in which women tie themselves together, for it reveals complicity and trust. Holding secrets shows trustworthiness and a sort of quite defiance. It is a natural thing for a female to hold secrets within her breast until the time is ripe to release them. Does it not follow the way in which her body is formed? A woman is made with that dark and mysterious recess that can grow a child safely until the child is ready to come out onto the birthing bed. And like birthing, secrets present themselves in many ways. some slip easily into the world, others must be torn out, if the body is unwilling. "
― Kathleen Kent , The Heretic's Daughter
2 " Oh fer Christ's bloody sake Martha I didna' raise ye to be well regarded. To be liked. Any puny weak-waisted slut can be liked. I raised ye to be reckoned with. "
― Kathleen Kent , The Wolves of Andover
3 " There are winter evenings in Massachusetts when there is no wind and the crust on the snow seems to hold in the cold. And if the moon is three-quarters full, its light adds a kind of warmth to the surrounding earth. "
4 " There is no death in remembrance. Remember me, Sarah. Remember me, and a part of me will always be with you." - Martha Carrier to her daughter, Sarah Carrier "
5 " It's hard to imagine, seeing how crowded the sky looks tonight, how far away one star is from another. Like people, really. We can appear to be standing right next to each other, and yet in our minds, we can be thousand miles away, lost to the outer reaches. But we're altogether in the same black soup, which makes us all related somehow. "
― Kathleen Kent , The Outcasts
6 " It's hard to imagine, seeing how crowded the sky looks tonight, how far away one star is from another. Like, people, really. We can appear to be standing right next to each other, and yet in our minds, we can be thousands of miles away, lost to the outer reaches. But we're all together in the same black soup, which makes us all related somehow. "
7 " Dr. Tom had said that Texas was the only place he had ever found that, when it killed you, it didn't forget about you. "
8 " If we could see the fullness of our tomorrows, how many of us would take desperate action to change the future? What if our far seeing showed us the loss of our homes, our families, our very lives, and to save it all we would need only to barter away our most precious souls. Who among us would give up what we cannot see for what we can hold in our hands? I believe many of us would peel ourselves away from our immortal selves as easily as the skin from a boiled plum if it meant we could remain on the earth for a while, our bellies full and our beds warm and safe at night. "
9 " If I do not do this thing, then it may go on and on. Nothing of the greater good comes without struggle and sacrifice in equal measure, be you man or woman, and in this way are we freed from tyranny. "
10 " Texas…was evidently the only place in the known universe, including Louisiana, that actually got hotter after the sun went down. "
― Kathleen Kent , The Dime (Betty Rhyzyk, #1)
11 " Life is not what you have or what you can keep. It is what you can bear to lose. "
12 " We, all of us, must be left alone to make good on our own consciences. And no county magistrate or judge or deacon can separate us from the truth, for they are only men. "
13 " A needle is such a small brittle thing. It is easily broken. It can hold but one fragile thread. But if the needle is sharp, it can pierce the coarsest cloth. Ply the needle in and out of a canvas and with a great length of thread one can make a sail to move a ship across the ocean. In such a way can a sharp glossy tongue, with the thinnest of thread of a rumor, stitch together a story to flap in the breeze. Hoist that story upon the pillar of superstitious belief and a whole town can be pulled along with the wind of fear. "
14 " I took a step. And then another. And so it went as we followed Father, who had come to take us forever away from Salem. And with every step I thought of my mother's courage as she faced her judges. With every step I thought of her cleaving to the truth even as she fell the short distance of the rope. With every step I thought of her pride, her strength, her love.And with every step I thought, I am my mother's daughter, I am my mother's daughter... "
15 " You ask me what makes a woman comely?" He tapped one finger lightly against her temple and said, "Thoughts, missus. It's thoughts that make a woman so. "
16 " I would move the earth to save your mother. D'ye hear me, Sarah? I would tear down the walls of her jail and carry her to the wilds of Maine, but it is not what she wants. She will throw herself at her judges because she believes that her innocence will show through all the lies and deceptions...She humbles me with her strength. "
17 " Men are always the last to ken what women know by sniffing the air. That's why God gave bodily might to Adam, to balance the inequities of strength. For if Eve had been given the power to serve her cunning and cruelty, there would have been a terrible reckoning for all mandkind, and the archangel would have trod on Adam's heels to escape paradise unsinged. "
18 " If we could see the fullness of our tomorrows, how many of us would take desperate action to change the future? What if our far seeing showed us the loss of our homes, our families, our very lives, and to save it all we would need only to barter away our most precious souls. Who among us would give up what we cannot see for what we can hold in our hands? I believe many of us would peel ourselves away from our immortal selves as easily as the skin from a boiled plum if it meant we could remain on the earth for a while, our bellies full and our beds warm and safe at night. (214) "
19 " But a child, so recently come into the world from the void of creation, can be more resilient than the strongest man, more strong willed than the hardiest woman. A child is like an early spring bulb that carries all the resources needed within its skin for the first push through the soil towards the sun. And just as a little bit of water can start the bulb to grow, even through fissured rock, so can a little kindness give a child the ability to push through the dark. "
20 " I see the world...and call it by what I feel it should be, not by what others who in their dull reveries think it is. "
