Hour of the Witch

Yes, this may be the hour of the witch. But the Devil? He most definitely wears breeches. The Devil can only be a man.

She was sent to the scaffold because she had a sharper tongue and a shrewder mind than her accusers. It is always the case when men hang women.

Signs, after all, were everywhere; it was just a question of knowing how to read them.

We are mortal. Nothing that touches us or we touch here is forever. Even rocks are rubbed small by the river.

She contemplated a mystery: How is it I am humiliated when I am alone? Does not humiliation demand an audience?

There were people in the world who were good and people who were evil, but most of them were some mixture of both and did what they did simply because they were mortal.

And while envy was a mortal sin, it grew rampant in everyone’s soul; it was but a dandelion, a weed that was unstoppable here and one learned to live with. It was a character flaw far less dire than the sort of mean streak that led a man to stab a fork into his wife’s hand.

A small thing, yes, but the world was rich with small things that in truth were signs of great importance.

I am a raft of secrets, she thought, and she imagined herself on timbers from a shipwreck, the water around her endless in all directions.

Yes, she thought, revenge belongs to God. But justice? That will be mine.

Ah, the Devil Herself. We really do not know whether the Devil wears breeches or a skirt, now do we?

there is nothing that frightens that man more than a woman who does not live happily under a man’s thumb.

That is where love and lamentation chance upon one another, and that is where we find God.

. . . it was then that an idea began to form in her mind. It was vague, the details beyond definition. But she was starting to see its contours, like the shore when a ship first spies land on the horizon.

I have heard it argued that prayer does not change God’s mind; rather, it changes us.” “The act.” “Yes, the act.” “I will ponder that idea.

Cruelty may be defined as violence without provocation and discipline that is excessive.

. . . in her heart she feared it was something more: it was a sign. Because, if one looked around carefully, wasn’t everything?

. . . she would convince herself that she wasn’t destined for Hell because in all other ways she led a good life. An exemplary life. And though she understood that works alone could not buy one’s salvation, the fact that she wanted so desperately to behave well was a favorable indication.

She held up her thumb and its two nearest fingers and said, "Meet the Devil's tines.

Men call bright women dim whenever they are threatened. So, take no relief in the names that any man calls thee. There is no safe harbor there.