Kathleen > Kathleen's Quotes

“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.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Outcasts

“When you leave New York you ain't going anywhere.”
― Jimmy Breslin

“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.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Outcasts

“A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
― Irina Dunn

“Men should think twice before making widowhood women's only path to power.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Women may be the one group that grows more radical with age.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke . . . She will need her sisterhood.”
― Gloria Steinem

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else.”
― Gloria Steinem

“We are becoming the men we wanted to marry”
― Gloria Steinem

“A liberated woman is one who has sex before marriage and a job after.”
― Gloria Steinem

“Once we give up searching for approval we often find it easier to earn respect.”
― Gloria Steinem

“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

“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.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter

“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

“Life is not what you have or what you can keep. It is what you can bear to lose.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter

“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”
― Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter

“It is true that some people will lose their desire for life and refuse food and drink after the death of a beloved, or if there is too much pain and injury to the body. 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 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.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter

“When I closed the door Grandmother was already seated at her spinning wheel. Her foot was on the treadle but her eyes were thoughtfully on me. The spinner was beautifully carved of dark oak with leaves twining their way round and round the outer rim. It must have been very old, as the designs were too fanciful to have been made i the new England. She called to me and asked me if I could spin. I told her yes, well enough, but that I could sew better, which was a statement only half true. A camp surgeon would have a better hand with a cleaver to a limb than I with a needle on the cloth. She spun the wool through knotted fingers glistening with sheep's oil and wrapped the threads neatly around the bobbin. Gently probing, she teased out the story of our days in Billerica just as she teased out the fine thread from the mix and jumble of the coarse wool in her hands.”
― Kathleen Kent, The Heretic's Daughter