The schoolhouse, on this sunlit morning, has begun to take…

“I have a hunger, for more than food. I have a hunger bigger than Joyce City. I want tongues to tie, and eyes to…

— Karen Hesse

“Anyway, this time I caught her in the slow stirring of biscuits, her mind on other things, but anyhow, she was distracted enough, I…

— Karen Hesse

I hear the first drops. Like the tapping of a stranger at the door of a dream, the rain changes everything.

— Karen Hesse

As long as you live, it is never too late to make amends. Take my advice, child. Don't waste your precious life with regrets…

— Karen Hesse

And I know now that all the time I was trying to get out of the dust, the fact is, what I am, I…

— Karen Hesse

“Daddy named me Billie Jo. He wanted a boy. Instead, he got a long legged girl with a wide mouth with cheekbones like bicycle…

— Karen Hesse

“We might not belong to anyone else in this whole world. But us Faulstiches,we belong to each other.”

— Karen Hesse

The work of one author or artist may stimulate another author or artist to push the edge, to take the risk, to go where…

— Karen Hesse

“Apples Ma's apple blossoms have turned to hard green balls. To eat them now, so tart, would turn my mouth inside out, would make…

— Karen Hesse

I have earned wages as a waitress, a nanny, a librarian, a personnel officer, an agricultural laborer, an advertising secretary, a typesetter, a proofreader,…

— Karen Hesse

My father and I, we can't soothe each other. I'm too young, he's too old, and we don't know how to talk anymore if…

— Karen Hesse

When Ma died, I didn't know how to go on, either. I don't know how. I don't feel the same know, not exactly. Now…

— Karen Hesse

Now Livie's gone west, out of the dust, on her way to California, where the wind takes a rest sometimes. And I'm wondering what…

— Karen Hesse

I don't know what I am thinking. But I am alone. I am trapped in the net of the room. In the net of…

— Karen Hesse

“I play songs that have only the pattern of my self in them and you hum along suporting me. You are the companion to…

— Karen Hesse