Hester Quotes & Sayings

She looked out across the water and allowed the feeling of longing to wash over her, spill into the crevices of her soul, and fill her completely. — Elizabeth Fama

After eyeing her for a moment or two, he said: 'If you let this chance of achieving a respectable alliance slip, you are a bigger fool than I take you for, Hester!' Her eyes came round to his face, a smile quivered for an instant on her lips. 'No, how could that be, Papa? — Georgette Heyer

Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? Or, — Nathaniel Hawthorne

My favorite football team is the Bears because my favorite player is on there, Devin Hester. I love the whole team, though. But that's just my favorite player. — Jacob Latimore

The way he looks at me, all serious and attentive, was more flattering than any compliment I'd ever had — Hester Browne

It is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another's toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult? — Lady Hester Stanhope

If truth can be found in any sublunary science, numbers will produce it, for to that at last almost all other sciences refer for confirmation. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

We look on those approaching the banks of a river all must cross, with ten times the interest they excited when dancing in the meadow. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

As with most situations in my life, Emery's dress was much harder to get out of than it had been to get into. — Hester Browne

Hester Landon, independent, invincible, indestructible. Who might have died after a terrible fall, if not for a neighbor - and her own indefatigable will. Now she reigned in a suite of rooms in his parents' home while she recovered from her injuries. There she'd stay until deemed strong enough to come back to Bluff House - or if his parents had their way, there she would stay, period. He wanted to think of her back here, in the house she loved, sitting out on the terrace with her evening martini, looking out at the ocean. Or puttering in her garden, maybe setting up her easel to paint. He wanted to think of her vital and tough, not helpless and broken on the floor while he'd been pouring a second cup — Nora Roberts

It is really a tightrope sort of thing, living. — Joy Hester

Less the same in her own home, which she'd had no chance to clean. If neither of these qualified in Hester's mind as valid church-excused emergencies, Dellarobia — Barbara Kingsolver

But there is nothing a man might not do, with you to encourage him. You make me wish to be a hero." He laughed, but Hester did not laugh. She gave him a keen look, in which there was a touch of disdain. " Do you really think," she said, " that the charm of inspiring, as you call it, is what any reasonable creature would prefer to doing? To make somebody else a hero rather than be a hero yourself? Women would need to be disinterested indeed if they like that best. I don't see it. Besides, we are not in the days of chivalry. What could you be inspired to do - make better bargains on your Stock Exchange? — Mrs. Oliphant

When you die, there is nothing. [...] to describe it in any way is to give it form. — Phil Hester

Just because some man pays you some attention doesn't mean you're somehow obliged to devote your life to him. You're worth MORE than that. — Hester Browne

Struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne's? — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Watching across the aisles, the Nevers' faces began to change. One by one, their scowls turned sorrowful, their eyes melted to hurt. Hort, Ravan, Anadil, even Hester ... as if they too wished they could have such joy. As if they too wished they could feel as wanted. Gone was their will to fight, lost to broken hearts, and the villains shrank into silence, snakes drained of venom. — Soman Chainani

I've been foolish." (Hester)
"I hope you at least had a grand time being foolish." (Ariadne) — Grace Burrowes

- but you know they're still doing it. Stoppin' 'em just made 'em go underground. Bill says he wouldn't be surprised if there was another Nat Turner Uprisin', we're sittin' on a keg of dynamite and we just might as well be ready, Hester said. — Harper Lee

As for my faith: I've become my father's son-that is, I've become the kind of believer that Pastor Merrill used to be. Doubt one minute, faith the next-sometimes inspired, sometimes in despair. Canon Campbell taught me to ask myself a question when the latter state settles upon me. Whom do I know who's alive whom I love? Good question-one that can bring you back to life. These days, I love Dan Needham and the Rev. Katherine Keeling; I know I love them because I worry about them-Dan should lose some weight, Katherine should gain some! What I feel for Hester isn't exactly love; I admire her-she's certainly been a more heroic survivor than I've been, and her kind of survival is admirable. And then there are those distant, family ties that pass for love-I'm talking about Noah and Simon, about Aunt Martha and Uncle Alfred. I look forward to seeing them every Christmas. — John Irving

It is never for their wisdom that one loves the wisest. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

A hundred years ago Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter was given an A for adultery; today she would rate no better than a C-plus. — Peter De Vries

Great friendships are like cell phones, you do not know why they work but are so glad that they do. — Hester Browne

He received in essence the same answer from every other shop he tried. No one recognized his description of Hester, and none of them had sold digitalis to any member of the Farraline household, or indeed to anyone not known to them personally. He pursued the other sources of information, the public house, the street peddlers and crossing sweepers, the errand and delivery boys and the news vendors, but all he learned was very general gossip that seemed to serve no purpose. — Anne Perry

How can something that is true in your heart and in your mind not be real? — Hester Velmans

Always keep a bottle of Champagne in the fridge for special occasions. Sometimes, the special occasion is that you've got a bottle of Champagne in the fridge. — Hester Browne

Besides,' she said, "it was not a hero I was thinking of. If anybody, it was Catherine Vernon." "Whom you don't like. These women, who step out of their sphere, they may do much to be respected, they may be of great use; but " "You mean that men don't like them," said Hester, with a smile; " but then women do; and, after all, we are the half of creation - or more. — Mrs. Oliphant

Don't pretend, Bianca," he said. "You're smarter than that, and so am I. I finally figured out what you meant when you left. You said you were like Hester. I get it now. The first time you came to my house, when we wrote that paper, you said Hester was trying to escape. But everything caught up with Hester in the end, didn't it? Well, something finally caught up with you, but you're just running away again. Only, he"-Wesley pointed to my bedroom door-"is your escape this time." He took a step toward me, forcing me to crane my neck even more to see his face. "Admit it, Duffy."
"Admit what?"
"That you're running away from me," he said. "You realized you're in love with me and you bailed because it scared the shit out of you. — Kody Keplinger

Things happen in NFL games. I don't try to dwell on it. I try to say, It happened. Let's move onto the next one. — Devin Hester

Our house has its back to the sea,' writes Hester in her journal. 'Below us, the ocean spreads to the sky, twitching wide and blue and hungry. One would think it to be infinite. But we, of course, know better. — Tanya Moir

Wall, digging a tunnel under the border, or taking to the water to swim — Hester Vaizey

conscious only of his movement upward, the last of Lee Scoresby passed through the heavy clouds and came out under the brilliant stars, where the atoms of his beloved daemons, Hester, were waiting for him. — Philip Pullman

When your heart feels strangely warm, you've found your love — Liz Hester

All the people around Hester hate her and despise her and think she's a total freak. The kid's beyond human law and human consideration. How do you feel about yourself when every human being you hear and see and smell every day of your being thinks you're worse than garbage? Your conception of who you are has always, at least partially, depended on how the people around you behaved towards you ... You don't know. How can you know anything? How can you know anything? You begin to go crazy. — Kathy Acker

Agatha wondered whether in this room of heroes young and old, Hester was the greatest hero of all. — Soman Chainani

Evil Hall had been transformed into a magnificent ballroom, glittering with green tinsel, black balloons, thousands of green-flamed candles, and a spinning chandelier streaking wall murals with emerald bursts of light. Around a towering ice sculpture of two entwined snakes, Hort and Dot stumbled through a waltz, Anadil wrapped her arms around Vex, Brone tried not to step on Mona's green feet, and Hester and Ravan swayed and whispered as more villainous couples waltzed around them. Ravan's bunk mates picked up the music on reed violins as more pairs flooded onto the floor, clumsy, bashful, but aglow with happiness, dancing beneath a spangled banner:
THE 1ST ANNUAL VILLAINS NO BALL — Soman Chainani

I wonder if the boy is a witness, perp, or victim. It bothers me that I can't tell, that a predator can look no different from its prey. — Hester Young

Tonight
Since I'd forgotten for a moment where you are,
I search for you with hope in my bones. — Hester Knibbe

Hester, her head shaking and her ears flapping. Dirt chuffed, — Jodi Picoult

I shall go on making sublime and philosophical discoveries, and employing myself in deep, abstract studies. — Lady Hester Stanhope

Cub had puffed up like a rooster when the article came out, taking it in to show the guys at the gravel company. He was impressed with all the celebrity in equal measure, the type of kid who had cut out pictures of football players, Jesus, and America's Most Wanted to tape on his bedroom wall. He'd confessed to having cried in sixth grade when he learned that superheroes weren't real. Dellarobia was his Wonder Woman. But Hester seemed incensed by the article, which referred to Dellarobia as Our Lady of the Butterflies. Among other complaints, Hester said it made them sound Catholic. — Barbara Kingsolver

The night-sigh comes and funeral march of years repeat, and ebb away. And in a golden glass I see the dream-wished day appear - and wait. — Joy Hester

A physician can sometimes parry the scythe of death, but has no power over the sand in the hourglass. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

Individuals in private life, meanwhile, had quite forgiven Hester Prynne for her frailty; nay, more, they had begun to look upon the scarlet letter as the token, not of that one sin for which she had borne so long and dreary a penance, but of her many good deeds since. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Hail Ostara, white-clad maiden. Snow and ice melt at your gaze, flowers bloom with each soft step. We who late have longed for spring-time, we welcome you at winter's end. I praise you now, O bright Ostara: Earth's cold cover send from here! — Hester Butler-Ehle

In every end is the seed of a new beginning...water it well — Liz Hester

One should know the value of Life better than to pout any part of it away. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

So she was what Hester called a 911 Christian: in the event of an emergency, call the Lord. — Barbara Kingsolver

HESTER. It is right that they should be punished, but don't let them be the only ones to suffer. If a man and woman have sinned, let them both go forth into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Let them both be branded. Set a mark, if you wish, on each, but don't punish the one and let the other go free. Don't have one law for men and another for women. You are unjust to women in England. And till you count what is a shame in a woman to be an infamy in a man, you will always be unjust, and Right, that pillar of fire, and Wrong, that pillar of cloud, will be made dim to your eyes, or be not seen at all, or if seen, not regarded LADY — Oscar Wilde

Appearances can be deceptive. Just because someone has a generous chest and a romantic nature doesn't mean they're EASY. — Hester Browne

Sometimes all it takes is one Deep Breath and everything falls into place. — Liz Hester

What signifies, says some one, giving halfpence to beggars? they only lay it out in gin or tobacco. "And why should they be denied such sweeteners of their existence (says Johnson)? it is surely very savage to refuse them every possible avenue to pleasure, reckoned too coarse for our own acceptance. Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding; yet for the poor we delight in stripping it still barer, and are not ashamed to shew even visible displeasure, if ever the bitter taste is taken from their mouths." — Hester Lynch Piozzi

The smile of a stranger can lead you into your joy — Liz Hester

My golden rule has always been to look on the bright side, no matter what. With all the complications in my life, I had to. Because if you can find three good things in any given situation, no matter how dire, I guarantee you'll forget the rotten stuff. — Hester Browne

Lee saw the fireball and head through the roar in his ears Hester saying, "That's the last of 'em Lee."
He said, or thought, "Those poor men didn't have to come to this, nor did we."
She said, "We held 'em off. We held out. We're a-helping Lyra."
Then she was pressing her little proud broken self against his face, as close as she could get, and then they died. — Philip Pullman

But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged, but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness [ ... ] — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Why dost thou smile so at me?" inquired Hester, troubled at the expression of his eyes. "Art thou like the Black Man that haunts the forest round about us? Hast thou enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?"
"Not thy soul," he answered, with another smile. "No, not thine! — Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sometimes we look around and realize we need new friends. That's the sign that they are just around the bend — Liz Hester

Hester, recently married herself, and knowing the depth and the sweep of love, ached for Callandra that she sacrificed so much. And yet loving her husband as she did, for all his faults and vulnerabilities, Hester, too, would rather have been alone than accept anyone else. — Anne Perry

There's a difference between compromising your independence and compromising yourself. Love's about giving up a little dependence, darling. But that doesn't mean you have to stop being you. — Hester Browne

Fashion is a cruel mistress. — Hester Browne

The darkness does not flow from my being to them, but out of their hearts and into my skin. I don't inspire your evil. I never did. You offer it to me, from the gravest crime to the smallest indifference. — Phil Hester

Every one in this world has as much as they can do in caring for themselves, and few have leisure really to think of their neighbours distresses, however they may delight their tongues with talking of them. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

He's coming up but he got bigger and stronger, that plus the athleticism. I'm going to have to show him that we're just as athletic in the middleweight division as [they are] in the welterweight division. I think he'll do good in the division but I'm glad I get to welcome him to middleweight. — Clint Hester

I am quite reactionary about Aussies travelling. Why, we've only been here a hundred years. What can be added by going before we are here? - that is not right but for we are here, but only just here. If we don't hold what we have we may never find it again, so delicate a thing it is, yet it gives the appearance of being overpowerful on close examination ... I don't think a change of location can answer our questions. — Joy Hester

Lina had never seen anyone so disorganized as the doctor. She peeked into the medicine room once when the doctor was out and was amazed at the clutter in there-shelves and cupboards and tables piled with stuff in bottles and stuff in boxes and stuff in jars, all higgledy-piggledy. How Dr. Hester found anything she couldn't imagine. — Jeanne DuPrau

Is it ... dead?" asked Tom, his voice all quivery with fright.
"A town just ran over him," said Hester. "I shouldn't think he's very well ... — Philip Reeve

Mistakes wreck your life. But they make what you have. It's kind of all one. You know what Hester told me when we were working the sheep one time? She said it's no good to complain about your flock, because it's the put-together of all your past choices. — Barbara Kingsolver

With wealth, I can do pretty much what I want. But you've got to provide a good example because you have a lot of people that look up to you now. — Devin Hester

He told me yesterday that weddings should be individual celebrations of a couple's relationship, ideally with just the bride and groom and a humanist minister. Everything else is merely social pressure to eat tiny cakes. — Hester Browne

The language of Doctor Johnson and Mrs Hester Lynch Thrale, and that of their adult contemporaries, was the stately language of the time, polished, stylish, unordinary, even in the intimate pages of their diaries, and the regime of instruction was severe and practical. — Robert Burchfield

That's one problem I've always had: when I'm anywhere near shit creek, I have to know how far up that creek actually goes." --Hester Day — Mercedes Helnwein

Stress can make people say things they don't mean, though. That's why you have to relax. — Hester Browne

[Samuel] Johnson's conversation was by much too strong for a person accustomed to obsequiousness and flattery; it was mustard in a young child's mouth! — Hester Lynch Piozzi

A poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in the world — Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope

Big Reg was twice divorced, separated from his third wife, and had two other women with him today. Both women wore navel-revealing tube tops, and neither had the figure for it. The tube tops appeared so tight they squeezed all flesh south, giving both women a gourdlike shape. "You." Hester pointed at the tube top on the right. "Me?" Somehow, despite the word being one syllable, she had managed to crack gum mid-word. "Yes. — Harlan Coben

The witnesses of Hester Prynne's disgrace had not yet passed beyond their simplicity. They were stern enough to look upon her death, had that been the sentence, without a murmur at its severity, but had none of the heartlessness of another social state, which would find only a theme for jest in an exhibition like the present. — Nathaniel Hawthorne

He felt the scent and the golden glow of the sunset light as intensely as he felt the dead silence which reigned between himself and Hester almost with the effect of a physical presence. — Frances Hodgson Burnett

[The photos] all bore the hallmarks of very expensive lighting and artistry, but Godric was projecting variations on the same emotion in every single one of them. Acute awkwardness.
Admittedly he'd really gotten "awkward" nailed--even in black Armani, leaning against a glass wall, he looked like a teenager waiting outside an STD clinic. — Hester Browne

No companion however wise, no friend however useful, can be to me what my mother has been: her image will long pursue my fancy; her voice for ever hang in my ears: may her precepts but sink into my heart! — Hester Lynch Piozzi

Asking the right question makes all the difference to your outcome. — Liz Hester

MRS ALLONBY I adore them. The clever people never listen, and the stupid people never talk.
HESTER I think the stupid people talk a great deal.
MRS ALLONBY Ah, I never listen! — Oscar Wilde

Hester, meanwhile, says we should live all of life back to front. We should be born old and age younger. Our baptism should be a ritual of our funeral. We should die as infants, content in our mothers' arms, having lost all our learning and all sense of disappointment. If only we could die, she says, not knowing we'd ever grieved. — Timothy Schaffert

Sobel was Jewish, urban, with a commission from the National Guard. Hester had started as a private, then earned his commission from Officer Candidate's School (OCS). Most — Stephen E. Ambrose

What an ephemeral thing human will is, to be manipulated by a couple of drops of hormones! — Elizabeth Fama

Hester kept her company by bringing her meals and tea, fussing over Rosebud, washing Morrow's clothes, and doing her hair as if she was the colonel's lady. "Colonel Clark is sure taken wi' you," she said. "Neither man nor beast ever talks back to that man, but you shore put him in his place over that bad business at Fort Randolph. And lo and behold, I think he liked it. But for one little thing." Morrow looked up from nursing Rosebud. "He just can't figure out why a beautiful woman like yo'self would settle for a savage. — Laura Frantz

They all attended Hester's church, which Dellarobia viewed as a complicated pyramid scheme of moral debt and credit resting ultimately on the shoulders of the Lord, but rife with middle managers. — Barbara Kingsolver

To demand promises is to invite disappointment -Hester — Jonathan Auxier

The Elephant of Depression wasn't just parked on my chest, it was relaxing there with the Walrus of Gloom and the Hippo of Bleak Friday Nights in Alone. They had beers. They were settling in. — Hester Browne

I think character never changes; the Acorn becomes an Oak, which is very little like an Acorn to be sure, but it never becomes an Ash ... — Hester Lynch Piozzi

Instead, Hester had been presented at court, — Sylvia Day

But our only chance of understanding it is to banish from our minds western conceptions and accept as facts what seem like wild imaginings. — Hester Donaldson Jenkins

Mothers...accept when they have to, let go when they must, but watch out; they'll also turn their back on whoever hurts their child so quickly you'll feel the wind cut your face. — Hester Kaplan

Go within and release yesterday's sorrow so you may embrace today's joy. — Liz Hester

MONK ATE DINNER IN the comfort of the kitchen, with Hester and Scuff. There was a checked cloth on the table, and the yellow china jug full of flowers on the dresser at the side was so big it hid half of the plates kept there. The back door was open to let in the warmth of the summer evening and the faint smell of earth and cut grass. "Why's it matter so much?" Scuff asked. They had been speaking of the new canal at Suez. "Because it will take about five thousand miles off the journey from Britain to the Far East," Hester replied, eager to sharpen his interest in anything connected with schoolwork. — Anne Perry

Hester tried to smile when she recalled this, but could not, her heart being too sore, her whole being shaken. He thought so too perhaps, everybody thought so, and she alone, an involuntary rebel, would be compelled to accept the yoke which, to other women, was a simple matter, and their natural law. Why, then, was she made unlike others, or why was it so? Edward — Mrs. Oliphant

Whenever I got a shot, the team that selected me, I just promised myself that I would give them something that they wouldn't regret ... The Chicago Bears drafted me, and I'm going to make sure they're not second-guessing themselves about that. — Devin Hester

Friendship is far more delicate than love. — Hester Lynch Piozzi

Hester shook her head. 'Don't confuse what you do with who you are, dearie. Besides, there's no shame in humble work. Why, Aesop himself, the king of storytellers, was a slave his whole life. Never drew a free breath, yet he shaped the world with just three small words: there once was. And where are his great masters now, hmm? Rotting in tombs, if they're lucky. But Aesop - he still lives to this day, dancin' on the tip of every tongue what's ever told a tale.' She winked at Molly. 'Think on that, next time you're scrubbing floors. — Jonathan Auxier

Women bear Crosses better than Men do, but bear Surprizes - worse. — Hester Lynch Piozzi