Karen Hesse > Quotes

“the way i see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“And I know now that all the time I was trying to get
out of the dust,
the fact is,
what I am,
I am because of the dust.
And what I am is good enough.
Even for me.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“The way I see it, hard times aren't only about money,
or drought,
or dust.
Hard times are about losing spirit,
and hope,
and what happens when dreams dry up.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“I don't know what I am thinking. But I am alone. I am trapped in the net of the room. In the net of humans. I think maybe I am drowning in the net of humans.”
― Karen Hesse, The Music of Dolphins

“I hear the first drops. Like the tapping of a stranger at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“Sometimes, a flame can be utterly extinguished.
Sometimes, a flame can shrink and waver, but
sometimes a flame refuses to go out. It flares up from the faintest ember to
illuminate the darkness,
to burn in spite of overwhelming odds.”
― Karen Hesse, The Stone Lamp: Eight Stories Of Hanukkah Through History

“As long as you live, it is never too late to make amends. Take my advice, child. Don't waste your precious life with regrets and sorrow. Find a way to make right what was wrong, and then move on.”
― Karen Hesse, Safekeeping

“Apples

Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.

To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.

But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.

June 1934”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“to those who swear our young are on the road to perdition take comfort in this- every generation has felt somewhat the same for two or three thousand years and the still the world goes on.”
― Karen Hesse, Witness

“each day after class lets out,each morning before it begins, i sit at the school piano and make my hands work. in spite of the pain, in spite of the stiffness and scars. i make my hands play piano.i have practiced my best piece over and over till my arms throb.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“I have a hunger,
for more than food.
I have a hunger
bigger than Joyce City.
I want tongues to tie, and
eyes to shine at me
like they do at Mad Dog Craddock.
Course they never will,
not with my hands all scarred up,
looking like the earth itself,
all parched and rough and cracking,
but if I played right enough,
maybe they would see past my hands.
Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,
and maybe then,
I could feel at east with myself.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“When I rode the train west,
I went looking for something,
but I didn't see anything wonderful.
I didn't see anything better than what I already had.
Home.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“...the morning with the whole day waiting,
full of promise,
the night
of quiet, of no expectations, of rest.
And the certainty of home, the one I live in,
and the one
that lives in me.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“I don't want to die,
I just want to go,
away,
out of the dust.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“And she knows how to come into a home
and not step on the toes of a ghost.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“His mother is wishing her boy would come home."

Lots of mothers wishing that these days,
while their sons walk to California,
where rain comes,
and the color green doesn't seem like such a miracle,
and hope rises daily, like sap in a stem.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“The schoolhouse, on this sunlit morning, has begun to take on the scent of girls with wind-blown hair, with seeds in their pockets, with road-hardened feet.”
― Karen Hesse, Safekeeping

“It almost rained Saturday.The clouds hung low over the farm.The air felt thick.It smelled like rain.
In town,the sidewalks got damp, that was all.”
― Karen Hesse

“I turn my back on him as he goes,
and settle myself in the parlor,
and touch Ma's piano.

My fingers leave sighs
in the dust.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“I play songs that have only the pattern of my self in them and you hum along suporting me. You are the companion to myself. The mirror with my mother'e eyes.”
― Karen Hesse

“Anyway, this time I caught her in the slow stirring of biscuits, her mind on other things, but anyhow, she was distracted enough, I was determined enough,this time I got just what I wanted. Permission to play at the Palace.”
― Karen Hesse

“Daddy named me Billie Jo. He wanted a boy. Instead, he got a long legged girl with a wide mouth with cheekbones like bicycle handles. He got a redheaded, freckle faced, narrow-hipped girl with a fondness for apples and hunger for playing fierce piano.”
― Karen Hesse

“We might not belong to anyone else in this whole world. But us Faulstiches,we belong to each other.”
― Karen Hesse, A Light in the Storm: The Civil War Diary of Amelia Martin, Fenwick Island, Delaware, 1861

“The way I see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. Hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.
And I'm learning, watching Daddy, that you can stay in one place and still grow.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“By the summer I turned nine Daddy had given up about having a boy. He tried making me do.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“Mr. Noble and Mr. Romney have a bet going as to who can kill the most rabbits. It all started at the rabbit drive last Monday over to Sturgis”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“When I point my fingers at the keys, the music springs straight out of me. Right hand playing notes sharp as tongues, telling stories while the smooth buttery rhythms back me up on the left.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“You've got what it takes, Billie Jo. Look at the size of those hands," he'd say. "Look at how tall.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“now and again, to keep a person hoping. But even if it didn't your daddy would have to believe. It's coming on spring and he's a farmer.”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust

“The potatoes are peppered plenty tonight, Polly," and "Chocolate milk for dinner, aren't we in clover!”
― Karen Hesse, Out of the Dust