Anna North > Quotes

“Knowledge can be very valuable... but only if people want it. If they don't, it can be worse than useless.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“When someone believes in something... you can't just take it away. You have to give them something to replace it.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“When I moved, the broker had told me there was something good for the brain about living near the sea, something about ions. But I often felt like the water was insulting me, like, "I'm beautiful and endless—what are you doing with your life?”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“And so I began my criminal career there in the house of God, with a leaky pen instead of a pistol and books instead of silver for my reward.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“It’s hard for me to talk about love,' she said. 'I think movies are the way I do that.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“Maybe that was how you had to live, eventually—just let things be and never ask yourself if they were what you really wanted.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“The point is, you live like I did, you start being able to spot what makes some people sink and other people swim. There’s a quality, I don’t even know how to describe it—sometimes it looks like luck and sometimes it looks like skill and sometimes it doesn’t look like either one. But you have it, I saw it when I met you. You’ve made a lot of mistakes, but you’re a good bet. You’ll swim.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Knowledge can be very valuable,” she said, “but only if people want it. If they don’t, it can be worse than useless.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Hate, I saw, breeds a kind of closeness. I fell in step with him.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Everybody in my family believed in ghosts, and my grandma said it wasn't just bad people who turned into them, it was bad deeds too.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“People cry witchcraft whenever they don’t understand something”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“But now when I think about that night, I think about something my stepdad once said when my mom yelled at him for quitting AA. He just told her in this sad, quiet voice, "Sometimes the sickest part of me just seems like the truest part.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“Maybe she had some sort of extraordinary quality, secret even to her. Maybe she did have the power to alter the things she'd always assumed she'd have to endure.”
― Anna North, America Pacifica

“It’s like having everybody mispronounce your name, every day. And at first you try to correct them, but they keep fucking it up, and then you start to wonder if maybe you’re the one who’s wrong and that really is how to pronounce your name. And after a while you start to wonder if you even have a name. Are you even a person? Do you even exist? Who fucking knows?”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“Mama says at every birth, death is in the room. You can try to ignore it, or you can acknowledge it, and greet it like a guest, and then you won’t be so afraid anymore.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Then I could feel the quiet that only comes with knowing what you need to know. And I could teach other people what I knew.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Knowledge can be very valuable, but only if people want it. If they don't, it can be worse than useless.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“If they take you, keep your head up. Don't beg for your life. Don't confess to any sin. If you die without shame, the shame is all theirs.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“She looked the way people look at that time in their relationship when they’re absolutely sure the other person loves them and they haven’t started to love that person any less yet.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“When someone believes in something,” Mama said, “you can’t just take it away. You have to give them something to replace it. And since I don’t know what makes women barren, I’ve got nothing to give.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“What does He want from us?” I asked. The Kid bent close to me then, until our foreheads were touching. “He will make you father of many nations, Ada,” the Kid said. “Watch and see.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof,’ Cassie. ‘Take therefore no thought for the morrow’ ”—the Kid dipped Cassie low and her flower crown slid into the dirt—“ ‘for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“the Great Flu had come to America on ships along with spices and sugar, then spread from husband to wife and mother to child and trader to trader by kisses and handshakes, cups of beer shared among friends and strangers, and the coughs and sneezes of men and women who didn’t know how sick they were and went on serving food and selling cloth and trading beaver pelts one day too long.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“I couldn't put aside my anger. Or maybe I could, but I don't want to.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“When a child dies, or two people in love can’t conceive, or a man loses his wife in childbirth—these things aren’t bearable, Ada, not without help. But if you know why it happened, if you have someone or somebody to blame, then sometimes that’s enough to keep going.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“just felt like I’d slipped into some other universe, one that had even less justice than the one I’d grown up in. I”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“She’d taken one of me when we were both in high school that I still love—I’m sitting on our front steps eating an ice cream sandwich, and I look more like myself than I’ve ever looked in any mirror, a little bit angry but a little bit hopeful, too, like I’m looking forward to not being mad.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“deep down I didn’t like saying no to people.”
― Anna North, The Life and Death of Sophie Stark

“last-minute costumes for Mothering Monday, baggy bright dresses for men and hats and mustaches for women, along with gray wigs to turn children into old grannies.”
― Anna North, Outlawed

“First things first,” Lo said. “You have to stand on both feet.” “I am standing on both feet,” I said. Lo kicked my left heel. I lost my balance and stumbled forward into the wardrobe, clinging to the coats to keep from falling on my face. “Sorry, little colt,” said Lo, laughing. “But you see what I mean now. Your weight’s all in your right foot. Men stand with their weight on both feet equally.” With both feet planted I felt both too heavy and too casual, a big clumsy kid about to barrel down a hill. “It feels strange,” I said. “It’s supposed to feel strange,” said Lo, crossing behind me. “Now hook your left thumb in your belt loop.” I did what I thought I had seen boys and men do, talking to one another at the feed store, loitering against the wall at a dance. Then I felt another kick and stumbled again, this time backward, pinwheeling my arms before regaining my balance. “You took the weight off your left leg,” Lo said. “I didn’t.” “If you hadn’t, little colt, you wouldn’t have fallen over. Now go ahead: do it again.” This time I was slower and more deliberate. “Good. Now the right—” Again I concentrated on holding my body in its odd new shape. “Very good. Now both thumbs.” The kick made me jump. “Ow!” I shouted. “Is this how you taught the others?” “It’s how I learned,” Lo said. “Who taught you,” I asked. “The Kid?” Lo laughed. “Please,” she said, “I taught the Kid and everyone else here.”
― Anna North, Outlawed