Harriet Boyd Hawes Quotes

“She was never neutral, but she could be tolerant, although it was hard work - never a tolerance of indifference.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“She liked to be in the thick of things and did not delegate easily, except where domestic chores were concerned.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“Most men in the ward were now convalescing. To her, "each day the nurse's duties became lighter and therefore more irksome.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained.”
― Mary Allsebrook

“[The tamed squirrels] made jolly companions but became very annoyed with her if she read too long; one would climb onto her shoulder, down her arm and sit on the page of her book 'with bushy tail outspread'.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“No outsider was allowed in the station except wives of the higher officers and a few friends. Where was Harriet in all this excitement? In the station, taking the train with the troops to Piraeus.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes

“The gallant captain vacated his cabin for her, and Manna changed her role from cook to chaperone. All most correct. But it was hardly the done thing to cadge a lift on a torpedo boat. Yet she did it twice in a lifetime.”
― Mary Allsebrook, Born to Rebel: The Life of Harriet Boyd Hawes