Hannah Kent

“The thunder kills the unhatched birds in their eggs.’ ‘Peg”

— Hannah Kent

I don't want to be remembered, I want to be here!

— Hannah Kent

“I prefer a story to a prayer.”

— Hannah Kent

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

— Hannah Kent

“Blíndur er bóklaus ma∂ur. Blind is a man without a book.”

— Hannah Kent

The treachery of a friend is worse than that of a foe.

— Hannah Kent

“cradling dead bodies in its cage of burnt beams.”

— Hannah Kent

“He knew me as one knows the seasons, knows the tide.”

— Hannah Kent

“Everything I said was taken from me and altered until the story wasn’t my own.”

— Hannah Kent

“I so often feel that I am barely here, that to feel weight is to be reminded of my own existence. Margrét…

— Hannah Kent

“She’s a landless workmaid raised on a porridge of moss and poverty.”

— Hannah Kent

“How hidden the heart, Nance thought. How frightened we are of being known, and yet how desperately we long for it. Father”

— Hannah Kent

“The only thing I could think of was, if you move, you will crumble. If you breathe, you will collapse.”

— 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

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

— Hannah Kent

“In the cowshed, my head hard against the floor, Natan broke the very yolk of my soul.”

— Hannah Kent

“I can picture the way he looked, and recall the weather, and the play of light across his stubbled face, but that…

— Hannah Kent

...dreadful birds, dressed in red with breasts of silver buttons, and cocked heads and sharp mouths, looking for guilt like berries on…

— Hannah Kent

“I could flee to the heath. Show them that they cannot keep me locked up, that I am a thief of time…

— Hannah Kent

“They will say ‘Agnes’ and see the spider, the witch caught in the webbing of her own fateful weaving. They might see…

— Hannah Kent

“I have come upon the conviction that it is not the stern voice of a priest delivering the threat of brimstone, but…

— Hannah Kent

“Those who are not being dragged to their deaths cannot understand how the heart grows hard and sharp, until it is a…

— Hannah Kent

The mystery at the center of 'Burial Rites' is not who killed whom on the night of March 13, 1828. It is…

— 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…

— 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…

— 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…

— Hannah Kent

Memories shift like loose snow in a wind, or are a chorale of ghosts all talking over one another. There is only…

— Hannah Kent

“Together they listed the people they had known who had died on the mountains. A bleak conversation to have, thought Margrét, but…

— Hannah Kent

It was only later that I suffocated under the weight of his arguments, and his darker thoughts articulated. It was only later…

— Hannah Kent

In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond…

— 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…

— Hannah Kent

In Iceland, you can see the contours of the mountains wherever you go, and the swell of the hills, and always beyond…

— Hannah Kent

“I scrubbed the filth from my keyboard, and placed a coffee coaster strategically on the desk. My schedule was relatively clear, and…

— Hannah Kent

“I will hold what I am inside, and keep my hands tight around all the things I have seen and heard, and…

— Hannah Kent

“I was worst to the one I loved best.”

— Hannah Kent

“Good Lord," he muttered "They pick a mouse to tame a cat.”

— Hannah Kent

“the wet mouth of the afternoon was full on my face.”

— Hannah Kent

No doves come from ravens’ eggs

— Hannah Kent

I preferred to read than talk with the others.

— Hannah Kent

When did a smile ever get anyone into trouble?

— Hannah Kent