Keri Hulme Quotes

• You want to know about anybody? See what books they read, and how they've been read.

  Keri Hulme

  Book, Want, Knows

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.348, LSU Press

  50 Copy quote

• But hands are sacred things. Touch is personal, fingers of love, feelers of blind eyes, tongues of those who cannot talk.

  Keri Hulme

  Eye, Hands, Sacred Things

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.71, LSU Press

  16 Copy quote

• I have watched the river and the sea for a lifetime. I have seen rivers rob soil from the roots of trees until the giants came foundering down. I have watched shores slip and perish, the channels silt and change; what was beach become a swamp and a headland tumble into the sea. An island has eroded in silent pain since my boyhood, and reefs have become islands. Yet the old people used to say, People pass away, but not the land. It remains forever. Maybe that is so. The land changes. The land continues. The sea changes. The sea remains.

  Keri Hulme

  Beach, Pain, Islands

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.336, LSU Press

  9 Copy quote

• There is a time, when passing through a light, that you walk in your own shadow.

  Keri Hulme

  Light, Shadow, Quiet

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.424, LSU Press

  9 Copy quote

• I am not a person to say the words out loud
  I think them strongly, or let them hunger from the page:
  know it from there, from my silence, from somewhere other
  than my tongue
  the quiet love
  the silent rage.

  Keri Hulme

  Thinking, Silence, Pages

  Keri Hulme (1992). “Strands”, Oxford University Press, USA

  10 Copy quote

• It's the possibility that when you're dead you might still go on hurting that bothers me.

  Keri Hulme

  Hurt, Goes On, Might

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.311, LSU Press

  8 Copy quote

• A family can be the bane of one's existence. A family can also be most of the meaning of one's existence. I don't know whether my family is bane or meaning, but they have surely gone away and left a large hole in my heart.

  Keri Hulme

  Heart, Gone Away, Dysfunctional Family

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.242, LSU Press

  10 Copy quote

• I have faced Death. I have been caught in the wild weed tangles of Her hair, seen the gleam of her jade eyes. I will go when it is time - no choice! - but now I want life.

  Keri Hulme

  Weed, Eye, Hair

  7 Copy quote

• I am exceedingly angry for no good reason.

  Keri Hulme

  Reason, Angry

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.63, LSU Press

  4 Copy quote

• I am not dead yet! I can still call forth a piece of soul and set it down in color, fixed forever.

  Keri Hulme

  Color, Forever, Soul

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.74, LSU Press

  7 Copy quote

• Through poverty, godhunger, the family debacle, I kept a sense of worth. I could limn and paint like no-one else in this human-wounded land: I was worth the while of living. Now my skill is dead. I should be.

  Keri Hulme

  Artist, Land, Skills

  4 Copy quote

• The smarter you are, the more you know, the less reason you have to trust or love or confide.

  Keri Hulme

  Inspirational, Life, Reason

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.128, LSU Press

  4 Copy quote

• Wars of small kingdoms and forgotten lands, what do chessmen dream of in the dark?

  Keri Hulme

  Dream, War, Dark

  4 Copy quote

• The company you keep at death is, of all things, most dependent on chance.

  Keri Hulme

  Company You Keep, Chance, All Things

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.416, LSU Press

  4 Copy quote

• I am in limbo, and in limbo there are no races, no prizes, no changes, no chances. There are merely degrees of endurance, and endurance never was my strong point.

  Keri Hulme

  Strong, Race, Endurance

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.28, LSU Press

  14 Copy quote

• Why? is the boy's motto, why does, why is, why not? Food, weather, time, fires, sea and season, clothes and cars and people; it's all grist to the mill of why.

  Keri Hulme

  Boys, Fire, Sea

  Keri Hulme (2005). “The Bone People: A Novel”, p.94, LSU Press

  4 Copy quote

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