Maria Dermoût > Quotes

“Felicia had never seen such beads before, neither of glass nor of metal, not of jade either, she thought; of stone or baked clay, rather, opaque, in mysteriously tender and quenched colors: orange ocher, golden brown, some touched with black; so subdued of hue - melancholy almost, as if there was something of autumn in that little box woven from leaves, something of passing and dying.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“A day in the radiant sunlight and the sky's blue, in the shadow of a proud dark sail, over rustling waves, along new coastlines, wouldn't that help to get past sadness? for a while, for that one day at least.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“what do you mean, granddaughter? sell? for money? we! you can't mean that, we didn't pay money for those things. Our animals give milk and eggs, fruits are from the garden, mussels from the bay--black coral the fishermen bring me because I give them medicine when they are ill...”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“The house is a house of ill fortune, it must not be rebuilt, but don't think about the rest any more, don't talk about it! So that it will not happen all over again”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“...they weren't a hundred things but much more than a hundred, and now only hers, a hundred times "a hundred things," next to each other, separate from each other, touching, here and there flowing into each other, without any link anywhere, and at the same time linked forever...a link which she did not quite understand, understanding it was not needed, wasn't possible, she had seen it--for one moment over the moonlit water.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“it is already beautiful here...and you are a fool, daughter-in-law. You have everything to learn--money, I know money is needed if something is to be bought, but you cannot buy happiness with it, not keep away misfortune. So much the worse for you, daughter-in-law.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“To Domingoes she gave the gold watch and chain of her won, and his mother-of-pearl spoon--he asked for the spoon, "to hold in my hand," he said, "the hand has a good memory.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“What was happening to her, was she dying, were those her “hundred things”? She sat quietly in her chair, they weren’t a hundred things but much more than a hundred, and not only hers; a hundred times “a hundred things,” next to each other, separate from each other, touching, here and there flowing into each other, without any link anywhere, and at the same time linked forever . .”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“We all die…and we receive nothing for nothing.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“...in one way he was far beyond his age, as if he were already prepared to give to the incomplete in his life its value and its place--to an unhappy love, for instance, the wrong profession, the things missed, lost, failed, and not only to Happiness, Success, Completion. But wasn't that for an older man, one who has been tried, who has learned his lesson?”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“At times I think of great-grandma, who said: learn to be proud--if we only remain proud people. You thought that when she said "proud" she meant "courageous." Yes and no, perhaps she really meant "proud"? there is something in that word "proud." And also in that she did not let us use the word "happy,”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“Past the three graves, the path suddenly went steeply up into the hills, hills without many high trees, open and sunny, overgrown with thick yellowish grass that smelled of herbs, and full of wild rosebushes. And from there, over the tops of the trees, over the house and the outbuildings, she could see the inner bay - like a round blue lake, with here and there light-green discolorings where the water was shallow and dark-green ones where it was very deep, around it the white ridge of the surf and all the luxuriant green of the coast.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“Are you listening to the bay? You are so silent, granddaughter -- three waves behind each other- - the father, the mother, the child, they say here, can you hear it?" and the old woman repeated it once more with the waves.”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“Who? who was saying that? was she, Felecia, saying that to her granddaughter? - -no, that did not make sense, that wasn't it - she herself was the granddaughter - -”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things

“we're never just murdered, we're always "killed in action" too...that's the way it is, one and the other...”
― Maria Dermoût

“In between Felicia thought of all the people who were not there, who were dead or not there--and then it was for a moment as if they were there, in the room with her and standing beside the bed, in turn...”
― Maria Dermoût, The Ten Thousand Things