Quotes from Out of the Dust

Karen Hesse ·  256 pages

Rating: (59.3K votes)


“the way i see it, hard times aren't only about money, or drought, or dust. hard times are about losing spirit, and hope, and what happens when dreams dry up.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“And I know now that all the time I was trying to get
out of the dust,
the fact is,
what I am,
I am because of the dust.
And what I am is good enough.
Even for me.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“The way I see it, hard times aren't only about money,
or drought,
or dust.
Hard times are about losing spirit,
and hope,
and what happens when dreams dry up.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“I hear the first drops. Like the tapping of a stranger at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“I have a hunger,
for more than food.
I have a hunger
bigger than Joyce City.
I want tongues to tie, and
eyes to shine at me
like they do at Mad Dog Craddock.
Course they never will,
not with my hands all scarred up,
looking like the earth itself,
all parched and rough and cracking,
but if I played right enough,
maybe they would see past my hands.
Maybe they could feel at ease with me again,
and maybe then,
I could feel at east with myself.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust



“each day after class lets out,each morning before it begins, i sit at the school piano and make my hands work. in spite of the pain, in spite of the stiffness and scars. i make my hands play piano.i have practiced my best piece over and over till my arms throb.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“Apples

Ma's apple blossoms
have turned to hard green balls.

To eat them now,
so tart,
would turn my mouth inside out,
would make my stomach groan.

But in just a couple months,
after the baby is born,
those apples will be ready
and we'll make pies
and sauce
and pudding
and dumplings
and cake
and cobbler
and have just plain apples to take to school
and slice with my pocket knife
and eat one juicy piece at a time
until my mouth is clean
and fresh
and my breath is nothing but apple.

June 1934
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“I turn my back on him as he goes,
and settle myself in the parlor,
and touch Ma's piano.

My fingers leave sighs
in the dust.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“When I rode the train west,
I went looking for something,
but I didn't see anything wonderful.
I didn't see anything better than what I already had.
Home.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“...the morning with the whole day waiting,
full of promise,
the night
of quiet, of no expectations, of rest.
And the certainty of home, the one I live in,
and the one
that lives in me.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust



“By the summer I turned nine Daddy had given up about having a boy. He tried making me do.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“And she knows how to come into a home
and not step on the toes of a ghost.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“His mother is wishing her boy would come home."

Lots of mothers wishing that these days,
while their sons walk to California,
where rain comes,
and the color green doesn't seem like such a miracle,
and hope rises daily, like sap in a stem.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“Mr. Noble and Mr. Romney have a bet going as to who can kill the most rabbits. It all started at the rabbit drive last Monday over to Sturgis”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust


“Ivy Huxford kept peeking out and giving reports of who was there, and how she never saw so many seats filled in the Palace, and that she didn’t think they could squeeze a rattlesnake into the back even if he paid full price, the place was so packed.”
― Karen Hesse, quote from Out of the Dust



About the author

Karen Hesse
Born place: in Baltimore, Maryland, The United States
Born date August 29, 1952
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“The violence of war is random. It does not make sense. And many of those who struggle with loss also struggle with the knowledge that the loss was futile and unnecessary.”
― Chris Hedges, quote from War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning


“Although we have no guarantee that the Copernican principle can guide us correctly in all scientific investigations, it provides a useful counterweight to our natural tendency to think of ourselves as special. Even more significant is that the principle has an excellent track record so far, leaving us humbled at every turn: Earth does not occupy the center of the solar system, nor does the solar system occupy the center of the Milky Way galaxy, nor the Milky Way galaxy the center of the universe. And in case you believe that the edge is a special place, we are not at the edge of anything, either.”
― Neil deGrasse Tyson, quote from Origins: Fourteen Billion Years of Cosmic Evolution


“Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.”
― Walt Whitman, quote from Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition


“She generally gave herself very good advice (though she very seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a came of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious child was very fond of pretending to be two people.”
― Lewis Carroll, quote from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Other Stories


“Der zweite russische Gast ist ein junger Kerl, siebzehn Jahre alt, Partisan gewesen und dann mit der kämpfenden Truppe westwärts gezogen. Er sieht mich mit streng gerunzelter Stirn an und fordert mich auf, zu übersetzen, daß deutsche Militärs in seinem Heimatdorf Kinder erstochen hätten und Kinder bei den Füßen gefaßt, um ihre Schädel an der Mauer zu zertrümmern. Ehe ich das übersetze frage ich: ‘Gehört? Oder selbst mit angesehen?’ Er, streng, vor sich hin: ‘Zweimal selber gesehen.’ Ich übersetze.

‘Glaub ich nicht’, erwidert Frau Lehmann. ‘Unsere Soldaten? Mein Mann? Niemals!’ Und Fräulein Behn fordert mich auf, den Russen zu fragen, ob die Betreffenden ‘Vogel hier’ (am Arm) oder ‘Vogel da’ (an der Mütze) hatten, das heißt, ob sie Wehrmacht waren oder SS. Der Russe begreift den Sinn der Frage sofort: den Unterschied zu machen, haben sie wohl in den russischen Dörfern gelernt. Doch selbst wenn es, wie in diesem Fall und ähnlichen Fällen, SS-Leute waren: Jetzt werden unsere Sieger sie zum ‘Volk’ rechnen und uns allen diese Rechnung vorhalten. Schon geht solches Gerede; ich hörte an der Pumpe mehrfach den Satz: ‘Unsere haben’s wohl drüben nicht viel anders gemacht.’

Schweigen. Wir starren alle vor uns hin. Ein Schatten steht im Raum. Das Baby weiß nichts davon. Es beißt in den fremden Zeigefinger, es kräht und quietscht. Mir steigt ein Klumpen in die Kehle. Das Kind kommt mir wie ein Wunder vor, rosa und weiß mit Kupferlöckchen blüht es in diesem wüsten, halb ausgeräumten Zimmer, zwischen uns verdreckten Menschen. Auf einmal weiß ich, warum es den Krieger zum Kindchen zieht.”
― quote from A Woman in Berlin: Eight Weeks in the Conquered City: A Diary


Interesting books

Nightfall
(24.3K)
Nightfall
by Isaac Asimov
Wolfsangel
(1.1K)
Wolfsangel
by M.D. Lachlan
Found in You
(30.5K)
Found in You
by Laurelin Paige
The Covenant
(17.3K)
The Covenant
by James A. Michener
Love Bites
(20K)
Love Bites
by Lynsay Sands
Rumors
(35K)
Rumors
by Anna Godbersen

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.