Quotes from Girl with a Pearl Earring

Tracy Chevalier ·  233 pages

Rating: (531K votes)


“He saw things in a way that others did not, so that a city I had lived in all my life seemed a different place, so that a woman became beautiful with the light on her face.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“You're so calm and quiet, you never say. But there are things inside you. I see them sometimes, hiding in your eyes.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Yes, well, life is a folly. If you live long enough, nothing is surprising.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I had walked along that street all my life, but had never been so aware that my back was to my home”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I wanted to wear the mantle and the pearls. I wanted to know the man who painted her like that.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring



“I heard voices outside our front door - a woman's, bright as polished brass, and a man's, low and dark like the wood of the table I was working on. They were the kind of voices we heard rarely in our house. I could hear rich carpets in their voices, books and pearls and fur.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“He spoke her name as though he held cinnamon in his mouth.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“It was not a house where secrets could be kept easily.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I could not think of anything but his fingers on my neck, his thumb on my lips.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“My father was often impatient during March, waiting for winter to end, the cold to ease, the sun to reappear. March was an unpredictable month, when it was never clear what might happen. Warm days raised hopes until ice and grey skies shut over the town again.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring



“He had decided to trust me.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I did not mind the cold so much when he was there.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“You know I don’t listen to market gossip,” she began,
“but it is hard not to hear it when my daughter’s name is mentioned.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“There followed a time when everything was dull. The things that had meant something lost importance, though they were still there, like bruises on the body that fade to hard lumps under the skin.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Pieter would be pleased with the rest of the coins, the debt now settled. I would not have cost him anything. A maid came free.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring



“I slowed my pace. Years of hauling water, wringing out clothes, scrubbing floors, emptying chamber pots, with no chance of beauty or color or light in my life, stretched before me like a landscape of flat land where, a long way off, the sea is visible but can never be reached.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“At first I could not meet his eyes. When I did it was like sitting close to a fire that suddenly blazes up.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Lick your lips, Griet."
I licked my lips.
"Leave your mouth open."
I was so surprised by this request that my mouth remained open of its own will. I blinked back tears. Virtuous women did not open their mouths in paintings.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I felt as if my parents had pushed me into the street, that a deal had been made and I was being passed into the hands of a man. At least he is a good man, I thought, even if his hands are not as clean as they could be.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“There is a difference between Catholic and Protestant attitudes to painting," he explained as he worked, "but it is not necessarily as great as you may think. Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things-tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids-are they not celebrating God's creation as well?”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring



“It seemed to me that the baker had an honest response to the painting. Van Ruijven tried too hard when he looked at paintings, with his honeyed words and studied expressions. He was too aware of having an audience to perform for, whereas the baker merely said what he thought.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I leaned agains the warm brick wall and gazed up. It was a bright, cloudless day, the sky a mocking blue. It was the kind of day when children ran up and down the streets and shouted, when couples walked out through the town gates, past the windmills and along the canals, when old women sat in the sun and closed their eyes. My father was probably sitting on the bench in front of the house, his face turned towards the warmth. Tomorrow night might be bitterly cold, but today it was spring.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“نپرسیدم تا چه حد برای گرفتن این اطلاعات خودش را به خطر انداخته. زیر لب گفتم، « متشکرم پیتر. » برای نخستین بار بود که نامش را بر زبان آورده بودم.
به چشمانش نگریستم و مهربانی را در آن ها دیدم. در عین حال چیزی را تشخیص دادم که از آن وحشت داشتم – توقع.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I liked sleeping in the attic. There was no Crucifixion scene hanging at the foot of the bed to trouble me. There were no paintings at all, but the clean scent of linseed oil and the musk of the earth pigments. I liked my view of the New Church, and the quiet. No one came up except him. The girls did not visit me as they sometimes had in the cellar, or secretly search through my things. i felt alone there, perched high above the noisy household, able to see it from a distance.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“I knew that he would go out to the tavern, returning with eyes like glittering spoons.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring



“Я хотіла знати, хоча доки не знала, могла сподіватися.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Años de acarrear el agua, retorcer la colada, fregar los suelos, vaciar los orinales, sin que la belleza o el color o la luz entraran en mi vida, se extendían ante mí como una paisaje llano en el que se divisa el mar a lo lejos, pero nunca puedes alcanzarlo. Si no podía trabajar fabricando los colores, si no podía estar cerca de él, no sabía cómo iba a poder seguir trabajando en aquella casa.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Evet,yaşam bir aldatmaca. Eğer yeteri kadar uzun yaşarsan, hiç bir şeyin şaşırtıcı olmadığını öğreniyorsun.”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


“Paintings may serve a spiritual purpose for Catholics, but remember too that Protestants see God everywhere, in everything. By painting everyday things—tables and chairs, bowls and pitchers, soldiers and maids—are they not celebrating God’s creation as well?” I”
― Tracy Chevalier, quote from Girl with a Pearl Earring


About the author

Tracy Chevalier
Born place: in Washington, DC., The United States
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“My mom says that when it rains you never feel like you should be anywhere but home.”
― Elise Broach, quote from Shakespeare's Secret


“We are not to judge of the feelings of others by what we might feel if in their place. However dark the habitation of the mole to our eyes, yet the animal itself finds the apartment sufficiently lightsome.”
― Oliver Goldsmith, quote from The Vicar of Wakefield


“Turing’s first goal was to make very concrete this notion of definite procedure. The idea is that, given a particular problem to solve, you can construct a definite procedure for solving it by designing a Turing machine that solves it. Turing machines were put forth as the definition of “definite procedure,” hitherto a vague and ill-defined notion.”
― quote from Complexity: A Guided Tour


“She just kept on criticizing me, but for contradictory reasons.”
― Giorgio Bassani, quote from The Garden of the Finzi-Continis


“She could just imagine, all her friends and family mourning around her grave. The tombstone would read Kari Wagner, Died of Sheer Stupidity.

It would be almost as bad to have her grave marker read Died of Terminal Bedroom Boredom.”
― Cherise Sinclair, quote from Dark Citadel


Interesting books

Twist and Shout
(1.5K)
The Road to Los Angeles
(4.5K)
The Road to Los Ange...
by John Fante
Get Me
(3.9K)
Get Me
by Jillian Dodd
Provoked
(4.8K)
Provoked
by Rebecca Zanetti
Deadly is the Kiss
(732)
Deadly is the Kiss
by Rhyannon Byrd
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever
(38.6K)
The Best Christmas P...
by Barbara Robinson

About BookQuoters

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.