Quotes from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“Everybody works . . . . That's what life is. Work and a little play and a lot of prayer.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“If two people love the same thing, she reasoned, then they must love each other, at least a little, even if they never say it.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“In the end, it's only the moments that we have, the kiss on the palm, the joint wonder at the furrowed texture of a fir trunk or at the infinitude of grains of sand in a dune. Only the moments.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“Work is love made plain, whether man’s work or woman’s work.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“How love builds itself unconsciously, he thought, out of the momentous ordinary.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“In the end, it's only the moments that we have.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“The winsome lilt of Digna humming in the garden. Her knowing, almost teasing look, not quite a smile, when she knew she had the upper hand about something, and his willing acquiescence. Her coaxing in the dark next to him - What was your favorite part of the day? - to which he'd always say, because he always thought it - now, touching you. He'd feel the lump of truth form in his throat, the swell of love in his loins. And afterward, the peace of her rhythmic breathing, steady as a Frisian clock, her simple uncomposed lullaby. Those are things he would, in some final, stretched-out moment, relive. How love builds itself unconsciously, he thought, out of the momentous ordinary.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“The painting showed she did not yet know that lives end abruptly, that much of living is repetition and separation, that buttons forever need re-sewing no matter how ferociously one works the thread, that nice things almost happen.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“No one but another painter could know the delicacy required to balance the complexities, to keep reality at bay in order to remain in the innermost center of his work.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“Now he knew . . . that there was nothing so vital as paying attention, and perfecting the humble offices of love.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“She thought of all the people in all the paintings she had seen that day, not just Father's, in all the paintings of the world, in fact. Their eyes, the particular turn of a head, their loneliness or suffering or grief was borrowed by an artist to be seen by other people throughout the years who would never see them face to face. People who would be that close to her, she thought, a matter of a few arms' lengths, looking, looking, and they would never know her.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“It was strange: When you reduced even a fledgling love affair to its essentials - I loved her, she maybe loved me, I was foolish, I suffered - it became vacuous and trite, meaningless to anyone else. In the end, it's only the moments that we have, the kiss on the palm, the joint wonder at the furrowed texture of a fir trunk or at the infinitude of grains of sand in a dune. Only the moments.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“I came to see that knowing what love isn't might be just as valuable, though infinitely less satisfying, as knowing what it is.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“She was a desperate woman with frailties just like her, temptations just like her, a woman who had needs, a woman who loved almost to the point of there being no more her anymore, a woman who probably cried too much, just like her, a woman afraid, wanting to believe rather than believing [...]”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

“The only place Aletta and I could be together unseen was just under the rafters in the church tower, a circumstance that propelled us into an earlier intimacy than what we would have known had we been permitted to walk together Sunday afternoons under the wide sky.”
― Susan Vreeland, quote from Girl in Hyacinth Blue

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“Clay snorted. “Special powers like what?” he’d asked.
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“Stunned, I sat down on the bed, reading the message over and over again, convinced I had misunderstood it in some way. I couldn’t believe that Jack would have written something so cruel or been so cutting. He had never spoken to me in such a way before, he had never even raised his voice to me. I felt as if I’d been slapped in the face. Surely I deserved some explanation and, at the very least, an apology? I needed to talk to someone, badly, so it was sobering to realise there was no one I could call. My parents and I didn’t have the sort of relationship that would allow me to sob down the phone that he had left me by myself and for some reason I felt too ashamed to tell any of my friends. Where had the perfect gentleman I’d thought him to be gone? Had it all been a facade, had he covered his true self with a cloak of geniality and good humour to impress me?”
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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.