Quotes from The Hired Man

Aminatta Forna ·  294 pages

Rating: (1.6K votes)


“We became friends, I suppose, because we lived close to each other and it suited us and because when you are young friendships go unquestioned.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“There's something uncomfortable about looking at pictures of your parents at a time when they made each other happy.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“Here in the hills the rain washing down my face feels good. I lift up my head and open my mouth and let the water in, it is sweet, pure and sweet. I shield my eyes and look in the direction of the town, invisible behind the torrent of water. Let it run, I think, through the streets, down the gutters, into drains until it is carried away by the river. Let it wash away the shit and the pus and the blood, the things that can be washed away. But let it also wash away the fear and the malice and the spite, the things that are harder to erase.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“Whenever he was asked what somebody had died of he'd reply (with immense gravity), "Lack of breath.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“There's nothing new about this story of ours, such things happen. Love misses its mark, arrives too early or too late. Nobody dies, except in novels.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man



“People said it was a song about drugs, but John Lennon said the name came from a picture his son painted of a girl at school.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“I’d always kept an eye on the house. I don’t mean doing repairs, for as the house didn’t belong to me that was not my place, but rather I’d keep watch over its decline. The changes come slowly, like watching a woman age: another line, the spread of crow’s feet, age spots rising slowly to the surface. One day the face you know is ravaged.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“For a long time, as I waited for her to return, I believed she knew I was there behind the trees and that this was my doing. That she knew I would come. For who else could it have been?”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


“There are after all, and as Laura said, so many summers.”
― Aminatta Forna, quote from The Hired Man


About the author

Aminatta Forna
Born place: Glasgow, The United Kingdom
See more on GoodReads

Popular quotes

“My hope lives not because I am not a sinner, but because I am a sinner for whom Christ died; my trust is not that I am holy, but that being unholy, he is my righteousness. My faith rests not upon what I am, or shall be, or feel, or know, but in what Christ is, in what he has done, and in what he is now doing for me.”
― Charles Haddon Spurgeon, quote from Morning and Evening, Based on the English Standard Version


“and what he was truly all about. Thirteen years old. I was still slightly stunned by that. Could a thirteen-year-old”
― James Patterson, quote from Jack & Jill


“ Henry hooked his legs on the branch and flipped over gingerly, until he was hanging upside-down, grinning at Vlad. Then Henry's grin slipped. He fell to the ground several feet below with a thump, crying out as his body made impact. Vlad shimmied down the tree as fast as he could. "Henry ! Are you okay?" Henry sat up, clutching his wounded knee. He looked very much like he was going to start crying any second. A small, thin line of blood oozed from the scrape on his knee. Vlad's tiny fangs shot from his gums. Henry's eyes went wide, his injury all but forgotten. "What are those?" Vlad's small shoulders sank. He'd let his dad down. "They're my fangs." "Vlad, are you a vampire or something?" Henry's eyes were big, and Vlad was certain he saw fear in them. Not as much fear as when Henry had been falling from the tree, but close. He took a deep breath, glancing at the house. Then he sat down in front of Henry and said, "Yeah, Henry. I'm a vampire. But it's a secret. A very, very, very big secret and you can't tell anyone ever.”
― Heather Brewer, quote from Eleventh Grade Burns


“...our nature and purpose is, more than anything else, to love and to make love, to take joy from the beauty of the world, to live with an awareness that the future is not as real a place for any one of us as are the present and the past.”
― Dean Koontz, quote from Fear Nothing


“One human life, a human heart freely given--it's the greatest gift anyone can give.”
― Stacey Jay, quote from Juliet Immortal


Interesting books

Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space
(22.5K)
Pale Blue Dot: A Vis...
by Carl Sagan
Walden & Civil Disobedience
(30.6K)
Walden & Civil Disob...
by Henry David Thoreau
Beautiful Redemption
(58.3K)
Beautiful Redemption
by Kami Garcia
The Black Prism
(72.2K)
The Black Prism
by Brent Weeks
The Bone Season
(45.6K)
The Bone Season
by Samantha Shannon
Keeper of the Lost Cities
(11.8K)
Keeper of the Lost C...
by Shannon Messenger

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.