Hannah Kent Quotes & Sayings

I really hate the term 'historical novel' - it reminds me of bodice-rippers. But I'm hooked on research, and I really, really enjoy it. — Hannah Kent

How hidden the heart, Nance thought. How frightened we are of being known, and yet how desperately we long for it. — Hannah Kent

When I write, I write for myself, and I have high expectations ... so I'm just trying to meet those. I'm not going to distract myself with other people's expectations. — Hannah Kent

I have come upon the conviction that it is not the stern voice of a priest delivering the threat of brimstone, but the gentle and inquiring tones of a friend that will best draw back the curtain to her soul, District Commissioner. — Hannah Kent

I can picture the way he looked, and recall the weather, and the play of light across his stubbled face, but that virgin moment is impossible to recapture. — Hannah Kent

My dad would tell me bedtime stories, and he used to always leave them open-ended and finish at a crucial point with the words, 'dream on'. Then it was my responsibility to finish the story as I was drifting off to sleep. We would call them dreaming stories. — Hannah Kent

Now comes the darkening sky and a cold wind that passes right through you, as though you are not there, it passes through you as though it does not care whether you are alive or dead, for you will be gone and the wind will still be there, licking the grass flat upon the ground, not caring whether the soil is at a freeze or thaw, for it will freeze and thaw again, and soon your bones, now hot with blood and thick-juicy with marrow, will be dry and brittle and flake and freeze and thaw with the weight of the dirt upon you, and the last moisture of your body will be drawn up to the surface by the grass, and the wind will come and knock it down and push you back against the rocks, or it will scrape you up under its nails and take you out to sea in a wild screaming of snow. — Hannah Kent

Is love constant for you? Have you ever loved a woman? A person you love as much as you hate the hold they have on you? — Hannah Kent

I don't like to pretend I was guided in any way by the supernatural world, but the more you talk about that, the easier it is to dismiss those notions. — Hannah Kent

The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe. — Hannah Kent

I try to love God, Reverend. I do. But I cannot love these men. I ... I hate them. — Hannah Kent

There are secrets at the heart of every story; there is something that must be uncovered or discovered, both by the reader and by the characters. — Hannah Kent

There are times when I wonder whether I'm not already dead. This is no life; waiting in darkness, in silence, in a room so squalid I have forgotten the smell of fresh air. The — Hannah Kent

He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide. Knew me like the smell of smoke, knew what I was, and what I wanted. — Hannah Kent

How can I say what it was like to breathe again? I felt newborn. I staggered in the light of the world and took deep gulps of fresh sea air. It was late in the day: the wet mouth of the afternoon was full on my face. My soul blossomed in that brief moment as they led me out of doors. I fell, my skirts in the mud, and I turned my face upwards as if in prayer. I could have wept from the relief of light. — Hannah Kent

I've been half-frozen for so long, it is as though the winter has set up home in my marrow. — Hannah Kent

People speak of the fear of the blank canvas as though it is a temporary hesitation, a trembling moment of self-doubt. For me it was more like being abducted from my bed by a clown, thrust into a circus arena with a wicker chair, and told to tame a pissed-off lion in front of an expectant crowd. — Hannah Kent

Lauga had asked Margret whether she thought there would be an outward hint of the evil that drives a person to murder. Evidence oft he Devil: a herelip, a snaggletooth, a birthmark; some small outer defect. There must be a warning, some way of knowing, so that honest people could keep their guard. — Hannah Kent

I prefer a story to a prayer. — Hannah Kent

Some folks are forced to the edges by their difference. (...) But 'tis at the edges that they find their power. — Hannah Kent

I preferred to read than talk with the others. — Hannah Kent

I don't want to be remembered, I want to be here! — Hannah Kent

I dreamt of the execution block last night. I dreamt I was alone and crawling through the snow towards the dark stump. My hands and knees were numb from the ice, but I had no choice.
When I came upon the block, its surface was vast and smooth. I could smell the wood. It had none of the saltiness of driftwood, but was like bleeding sap, like blood. Sweeter, heavier.
In my dream I dragged myself up and held my head above it. It began to snow, and I thought to myself: "This is the silence before the drop." And then I wondered at the stump being there, the tree it might have been, when trees do not grow here. There is too much silence, I thought in my dream. Too many stones.
So I addressed the wood out loud. I said: "I will water you as though you still lived." And at this last word I woke. — Hannah Kent

She doesn't look like a criminal, he thought. Not since she's had a bath. — Hannah Kent

To know what a person has done, and to know who a person is, are very different things. — Hannah Kent

I applied for funding to embark on an overseas field trip in Iceland, and spent six weeks there happily holed up in the national archives, museums and libraries, sifting through ministerial and parish records, censuses, maps, microfilm, logs, and local histories. — Hannah Kent

In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond that the horizon. And there's this strange thing: you're never sort of hidden; you always feel exposed in that landscape. But it makes it very beautiful as well. — Hannah Kent

What else is God good for other than a distraction from the mire we're all stranded in? — Hannah Kent

For the first time in my life, someone saw me, and I loved him because he made me feel I was enough. — Hannah Kent

I had expected that at some point during the first draft a light would go on, and I would understand, finally, how to write a book. This never happened. The process was akin to blindly walking in the dark, feeling my way only by touch, and only recognising dead ends when I smacked into them. — Hannah Kent

I first heard the story of Agnes Magnusdottir when I was an exchange student in the north of Iceland. — Hannah Kent

The weight of his fingers on mine, like a bird landing on a branch. It was the drop of a match. I did not see that we were surrounded by tinder until I felt it burst into flames. — Hannah Kent

In those early visits it was as though we were building something sacred. We'd place words carefully together, piling them upon one another, leaving no spaces. We each created towers, two beacons, the like of which are built along roads to guide the way when the weather comes down. We saw one another through the fog, the suffocating repetition of life. — Hannah Kent

Dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on a bush. — Hannah Kent

You know you're going to have a good day when your morning begins with breakfast in the same room as Carrie Tiffany, David Vann and Lionel Shriver. — Hannah Kent

Folks say, for every mountain there is a valley. — Hannah Kent

If I had known that the dress I laboured over would be my only warmth in a room that reeked of sour skin. If I had known that the dress would one day be put on in the night, in a hurry, to be soaked with sweat as I ran through the witching hours to Stapar, screaming fit to raise the dead. — Hannah Kent

Death happened, and in the usual way it happens, and yet, not like anything else at all. — Hannah Kent

But I needed to create a life of my own. And here I — Hannah Kent

Of all the names, one is a mistake. One is a nightmare. The stair you miss in the darkness. — Hannah Kent

And though the snow smothered the valley and the milk froze in the dairy, my soul thawed. — Hannah Kent

God has had His chance to free me, and for reasons known to Him alone, He has pinned me to ill fortune, and although I have struggled, I am run through and through with disaster; I am knifed to the hilt with fate. — Hannah Kent

Natan Ketilsson fetched his wife from heaven's gate. — Hannah Kent

I could have been a pauper; I could have been their servant, until those words! They anchor me to a memory that snatches the breath out of me. They are the magic words, the curse that turns me into a monster, and now I am Agnes of Illugastadir, Agnes of the fire, Agnes of the dead bodies with the blood, not burnt, still clinging to the clothes I made for him. — Hannah Kent

What's the name for the space between stars?"
"No such name."
"Make one up."
I thought about it. "The soul asylum."
"That's another way of saying heaven, Agnes. — Hannah Kent

Any woman knows that a thread, once woven, is fixed in place; the only way to smooth a mistake is to let it all unravel. — Hannah Kent

I have made a mistake. They condemn me to death and I ask for a boy to coach me for it. A red-headed boy, who gobbles his buttered bread and toddles to his horse with the seat of his pants wet, this is the young man they hope will get me on my knees, full of prayer. This is the young man I hope will be able to help me, although with what and how I cannot think. — Hannah Kent

I imagine, then, that we are all candle flames, greasy-bright, fluttering in the darkness and the howl of the wind, and in the stillness of the room I hear footsteps, awful coming footsteps, coming to blow me out and send my life up away from me in a grey wreath of smoke. I will vanish into the air and the night. They will blow us all out, one by one, until it is only their own light by which they see themselves. — Hannah Kent

The last bed, the last roof, the last floor. The last of everything brings lugs of pain, as though there will be nothing left, but smoke from fires abandoned. — Hannah Kent

In the cowshed, my head hard against the floor, Natan broke the very yolk of my soul. — Hannah Kent

The thunder kills the unhatched birds in their eggs.' 'Peg — Hannah Kent

She invented her own language to say what everyone else could only feel. — Hannah Kent

He lay back down on the snow. "What's the name for the space between stars?" "No such name." "Make one up." I thought about it. "The soul asylum. — Hannah Kent

It was only later that I suffocated under the weight of his arguments, and his darker thoughts articulated. It was only later that our tongues produced landslides, that we became caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant, until we could not find each other, did not trust the words in our own mouths. — Hannah Kent

They see I've got a head on my shoulders, and believe a thinking woman cannot be trusted. — Hannah Kent

The next morning I woke, and for a few moments I didn't know where I was. Then my memory of the night came back to me, and anger tightened my stomach, invigorating me. — Hannah Kent

I was a very imaginative child, and my parents were very encouraging of that. My sister and I would put on plays; I would write my own stories. — Hannah Kent

He turned his head, ice crystals caught in his hair. "Agnes. Don't pretend you disagree. This is all there is and you know it. Life, here, in our veins. There is the snow, and the sky, and the stars and the things they tell us, and that's all. Everyone else - they're blind. They don't know if they're living or dead. — Hannah Kent

The only thing I could think of was, if you move, you will crumble. If you breathe, you will collapse. — Hannah Kent

She made mistakes and others made up their minds about her. People around here don't let you forget your misdeeds. They think them the only things worth writing down. — Hannah Kent

No doves come from ravens' eggs — Hannah Kent

I had an interest in Scandinavian countries because I'd never seen snow. — Hannah Kent

Endless days of dark indoors and hateful glances are enough to set a rime on anyone's bones. — Hannah Kent

Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a nest of rocks with only an empty egg in it. — Hannah Kent

A tight fear, like a fishing line, hooked upon something that must, inevitably, be dragged from the depths. (Margret) — Hannah Kent

It was not hard to believe a beautiful woman capable of murder, Margret thought.As it says in the sagas, Opt er flago i fogru skinni. A witch often has fair skin. — Hannah Kent

We became caught in the cracks between what we said and what we meant, — Hannah Kent

Illugastadir, the farm by the sea, where the soft air rings with the clang of the smithy, and gulls caw, and seals roll over in their fat. Illugastadir, where the night is lit by fire, where smoke turns in the early morning to engulf the stars, and in ruins, always Illugastadir, cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams. — Hannah Kent

I remain quiet. I am determined to close myself to the world, to tighten my heart and hold what has not yet been stolen from me. I cannot let myself slip away. I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and felt. — Hannah Kent

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only ever a sense that what is real to me is not real to others, and to share a memory with someone is to risk sullying my belief in what has truly happened. — Hannah Kent

When did a smile ever get anyone into trouble? — Hannah Kent

She is not like me. She knows only the tree of life. She has not seen its twisted roots pawing stones and coffins. — Hannah Kent

They will see the whore, the madwoman, the murderess, the female dripping blood into the grass and laughing with her mouth choked with dirt. They will say "Agnes" and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see the lamb circled by ravens, bleating for a lost mother. But they will not see me. I will not be there. — Hannah Kent

Good Lord," he muttered "They pick a mouse to tame a cat. — Hannah Kent

So lonely I make friends with the ravens that prey on lambs. — Hannah Kent

Agnes. Don't pretend you disagree. This is all there is and you know it. Life, here, in our veins. There is the snow, and the sky, and the stars and the things they tell us, and that's all. — Hannah Kent

I can turn to that day as though it were a page in a book. It's written so deeply upon my mind I can almost taste the ink. — Hannah Kent

If I believed everything everyone had ever told me about my family I'd be a sight more miserable than I am now — Hannah Kent

The mystery at the center of 'Burial Rites' is not who killed whom on the night of March 13, 1828. It is the mystery each of us encounters: Can we every truly know another? Can we ever truly know ourselves? — Hannah Kent

I have a deep and ongoing love of Iceland, particular the landscape, and when writing 'Burial Rites,' I was constantly trying to see whether I could distill its extraordinary and ineffable qualities into a kind of poetry. — Hannah Kent

I used to have 20/20 vision, believe it or not; that's gone because of all the reading I did when I wasn't supposed to, reading in the back of a car, waiting for each street light to go past so I could grab another sentence. — Hannah Kent

I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to do as a money-making job. — Hannah Kent

Heavenly Father, forgive me my sins. Forgive me my weakness and fear. Help me to fight my cowardice. Strengthen my ability to withstand the sight of suffering, so that I might do Your work in relieving those who endure it. -Toti — Hannah Kent

It is the waiting that cripples. — Hannah Kent

Cruel birds, ravens, but wise. And creatures should be loved for their wisdom if they cannot be loved for kindness. — Hannah Kent

Criminals of this stature are usually sent abroad for their punishment, where there are jailhouses — Hannah Kent

I might have starved to death. I would be mud-slick, stuffed to the guts with cold and hopelessness, and my body might know it was doomed and give up on its own. That would be better than idly winding wool on a snowy day, waiting for someone to kill me. — Hannah Kent

I feel drunk with summer and sunlight. I want to seize fistfuls of sky and eat them. — Hannah Kent

Sleep came to me like a thin tide of water. It would lap against my body but never submerge me. — Hannah Kent

I could flee to the heath. Show them that they cannot keep me locked up, that I am a thief of time and will steal the hours denied to me! — Hannah Kent

I was worst to the one I loved best. — Hannah Kent

Poverty scrapes these homes down until they all look the same, and they all have in common the absence of things that ought to be there. I might as well have been at one place all my life. — Hannah Kent

Most writers are drawn to what is unknown, rather than what is clear in any tale. — Hannah Kent

Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn't my own. — Hannah Kent

I still don't know why, exactly, but I do think people can have a spiritual connection to landscape, and I certainly did in Iceland. — Hannah Kent

The gloom encroaches upon my mind, and my heart flutters like a bird held fast in a fist. — Hannah Kent

A bubble of fear passes up my spine. It's the feeling of standing on ice and suddenly hearing it crack under your weight - both thrilling and terrifying together. — Hannah Kent

It's not fair. People claim to know you through the things you've done, and not by sitting down and listening to you speak for yourself. — Hannah Kent

I cannot think of what it was not to love him. To look at him and realise I had found what I had not known I was hungering for. A hunger so deep, so capable of driving me into the night, that it terrified me. — Hannah Kent