Quotes from The Hand That First Held Mine

Maggie O'Farrell ·  341 pages

Rating: (11.5K votes)


“You young people are always so obsessed with truth. The truth is often overrated.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine


“Listen. The trees in this story are stirring, trembling, readjusting themselves. A breeze is coming in gusts off the sea, and it is almost as if the trees know, in their restlessness, in their head-tossing impatience, that something is about to happen.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine


“And we forget because we must.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine


“There on the landing sits the typewriter. It is clogged with dust, the ribbon dried and flimsy. Looking at it gives Felix a feeling close to vertigo. He realises he can replicate in his head the exact sound it used to make. The clac-clac-a-clac of the metal letters hitting the paper, the ribbon raising itself each time to make the impression. The machine-gun fire of it, when the work was going well. The stops and pauses when it wasn't, to allow for a sigh, a draw on a cigarette. The ding every time the carriage reached its limit. The whirr as the page was snatched out, then the rolling ratcheting as a new one was wound in.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine


“He is momentarily filled with a kind of pity for his son. What a task lies ahead of him: to learn literally everything.”
― Maggie O'Farrell, quote from The Hand That First Held Mine



About the author

Maggie O'Farrell
Born place: Coleraine, Ireland
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“There had never been any line between them, only his own stupid fear and pride. Because from the moment he'd pulled her out of that mine in Endovier and she had set those eyes upon him, still fierce despite a year in hell, he'd been walking toward this, walking to her. So Chaol brushed away her tears, lifter her chin, and kissed her.”
― Sarah J. Maas, quote from Crown of Midnight


“He never forgot anything but he never bothered to arrange his memories. -Hazel, Cannery Row”
― John Steinbeck, quote from Cannery Row


“I held you in my hands, Wanderer, and you were beautiful.”
― Stephenie Meyer, quote from The Host


“Dont speak of tomorrow.Let the music speak to us tonight,in a happier language than ours.”
― Wilkie Collins, quote from The Woman in White


“So while it seemed like you were seeing everything, you really weren't. Just bits and pieces that looked like a whole.”
― Sarah Dessen, quote from Just Listen


Interesting books

Everyman
(13.5K)
Everyman
by Philip Roth
Music for Chameleons
(7.4K)
Music for Chameleons
by Truman Capote
Cycle of the Werewolf
(39K)
Cycle of the Werewol...
by Stephen King
Sharp Teeth
(4.1K)
Sharp Teeth
by Toby Barlow
Loving Mr. Darcy: Journeys Beyond Pemberley
(1.7K)
Loving Mr. Darcy: Jo...
by Sharon Lathan
Tales From the Hood
(16.5K)
Tales From the Hood
by Michael Buckley

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.