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Karen Maitland

Karen Maitland Biography

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“I'd believed mine was the greatest of all the arts, the noblest of all the lies, the creation of hope. I thought hope could overcome everything, but I was wrong. Hope cannot overcome truth. Hope and truth cannot co-exist. Truth destroys hope. The most savage cruelties man inflicts on man are committed in the pursuit of truth. My last lie had been the most honest, the most honorable of them all, for there is an art greater even than the creation of hope. The greatest art of all is the destruction of truth.”

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Book:Company of Liars
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“Are you finally admitting that you can sell a man hope? Have I at last succeeded in teaching you that?” He laughed and flicked his whip again, harder. He was in a better mood than I had seen for months. “No, Camelot, not hope. Hope is for the weak; have I not succeeded in teaching you that? To hope is to put your faith in others and in things outside yourself; that way lies betrayal and disappointment. They didn't want hope, Camelot; they wanted certainty. What a man needs is the certainty that he is right, no self-doubt, no fleeting thought that he might be wrong or misled. Absolute certainty that he is right—that's what gives a man the confidence and power to do whatever he wants and to take whatever he wants from this world and the next.”

HopeHuman NatureLiesExistentialismHuman Condition
Book:Company of Liars
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“I had seen that errible look on a man's face before, on the faces of those being dragged to the gallows. Some scream and plead, some swear and curse, some go serenely, convinced that the open gates of Paradise await them. But the worst, the most chilling, are those who neither fight nor embrace it, but accept it, their faces fixed in a look of utter hopelessness and despair. Their eyes stare out at you as if they are already the eyes of a dead man, and not a dead man in Paradise, but one who is in purgatory or worse, far worse.”

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Book:Company of Liars
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“For the fact is when men are hand, innocent or guilty, their semen, that salty white milk, falls onto the Earth and there are on that very spot we spring up... Why men should ejaculate in the throes of death is a mystery even to me. Perhaps death really is the consummation of life, or maybe it's the last act of the body desperate to bequeath a life that will go on even as its own is obliterated. But I like to believe it is a final one-fingered gesture of defiance at their executioners, the only obscene gesture they can make since their hands are tightly bound behind them. Whatever the reason, felons with their dying gasp impregnate our mother and so we, the mandrakes, are conceived.”

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Book:The Gallows Curse
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“For the fact is when men are hanged, innocent or guilty, their semen, that salty white milk, falls onto the Earth and there on that very spot we spring up... Why men should ejaculate in the throes of death is a mystery even to me. Perhaps death really is the consummation of life, or maybe it's the last act of the body desperate to bequeath a life that will go on even as its own is obliterated. But I like to believe it is a final one-fingered gesture of defiance at their executioners, the only obscene gesture they can make since their hands are tightly bound behind them. Whatever the reason, felons with their dying gasp impregnate our mother and so we, the mandrakes, are conceived.”

FunnyBirthMythologyMandrakes
Book:The Gallows Curse
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“My brave husband came back from fighting the Turks and brought me a robe of silk and a necklace of human teeth. He sat up at night by his hearth telling tales of battle. Apparently the Turks are ten times more ferocious and fearless than the Scots. 'Perhaps we should invite them here to drive the Scots back,' I suggested, and he laughed, but he didn't kiss me. That's when I learned the truth about scars. A man with a battle scar is a veteran, a hero, given an honoured place at the fire. Small boys gaze up fascinated, dreaming of winning such badges of courage. Maids caress his thighs with their buttocks as they bend over to mull his ale. Women cluck and cosset, and if in time other men grow a little weary of that tale of honour, then they call for his cup to be filled again and again until he is fuddled and dozes quietly in the warmth of the embers. But a scarred woman is not encouraged to tell her story. Boys jeer and mothers cross themselves. Pregnant women will not come close for fear that if they look upon such a sight, the infant in their belly will be marked. You've heard of the tales of Beauty and the Beast no doubt. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in fairytales. The truth is that the scarred woman's husband buys her a good thick veil and enquires about nunneries for the good of her health. He spends his days with his falcons and his nights instructing pageboys in their duties. For if nothing else, the wars taught him how to be a diligent master to such pretty lads.”

WomenBeautySadnessSelf EsteemScars
Book:Company of Liars
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“[He] bowed his head, crossing himself, and so fervently did he pray that he almost missed the sound of the footsteps crossing the courtyard. But a man who has watched through many a long night waiting for that slight intake of breath that in the assassin makes before he sticks the dagger your back or slices his knife across your throat, can never again give himself over to prayer or sleep or even love-making without his sixth sense remaining ever watchful.”

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Book:The Gallows Curse
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“Part of him had dreaded seeing Elena again and yet he couldn't keep away. He hadn't been able to bring himself to look at her at first, because he knew that Raoul had had the pleasure of her. He had wanted to punish her, make her the whore she was, but now that it had happened, he was terrified of seeing that look of hardness in her eyes, that loss of innocence that had still remained even after Athan had bedded her. He wanted to seize her and shake her until she told him every single filthy thing that she and Raoul had done together. He wanted to know in each minute detail how she had looked when Raoul had touched her, what she had said, what she'd thought, what she felt.”

ChadIncelsInvoluntary CelibateElliot RodgerStacy
Book:The Gallows Curse
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“Raffe lifted the latch on the heavy door and sidled in. As usal, he gagged as he took his first breath in the cloying, fishy stink of the smoke that rose from the burning seabirds, which were skewered on to the wall spikes in place of candles. In the dim oily light, he could make out the vague outlines of men sitting in twos and threes around the tables, heard the muttered conversations, but could no more recognize a face than see his own feet in the shadows. A square, brawny woman deposited a flagon and two leather beakers on a table before waddling across to Raffe. Pulling his head down towards hers, she planted a generous kiss on his smooth cheek. Thought you'd left us,' she said reprovingly. You grown tired of my eel pic?' How could anyone grow tired of a taste of heaven?' Raffe said, throwing his arm around her plump shoulders and squeezing her. The woman laughed, a deep, honest belly chuckle that set her pendulous breasts quivering. Raffe loved her for that. 'He's over there, your friend,' she murmured. 'Been wait ing a good long while.' Raffe nodded his thanks and crossed to the table set into a dark alcove, sliding on to the narrow bench. Even in the dirty mustard light he could recognize Talbot's broken nose and thickened ears. Talbot looked up from the rim of his beaker and grunted. By way of greeting he pushed the half-empty flagon of ale towards Raffe. Raffe waited until the serving woman had set a large portion of eel pie in front of him and retreated out of earshot. He hadn't asked for food, no one ever needed to here. In the Fisher's Inn you ate and drank whatever was put in front of you and you paid for it too. The marsh and river were far too close for arguments, and the innkeeper was a burly man who had beaten his own father to death when he was only fourteen, so rumour had it, for taking a whip to him once too often. Opinion was divided on whether the boy or the father deserved what they suffered at each other's hands, but still no one in those parts would have dreamed of report ing the killing. And since the innkeeper's father lay rotting somewhere at the bottom of the deep, sucking bog, he wasn't in a position to complain.”

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Book:The Gallows Curse
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“You've heard tales of beauty and the beast. How a fair maid falls in love with a monster and sees the beauty of his soul beneath the hideous visage. But you've never heard the tale of the handsome man falling for the monstrous woman and finding joy in her love, because it doesn't happen, not even in a story-teller's tale.”

MenLoveSoulStoriesHappensAgeJoyFallHeardFindingsFairsFalling In LoveMonstersTalesBeastHandsomeMonstrousHideousMaidsHandsome Men
Author:Karen Maitland
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“Home is the place you return to when you have finally lost your soul. Home is the place where life is born, not the place of your birth, but the place where you seek rebirth. When you no longer have to remember which tale of your own past is true and which is an invention, when you know that you are an invention, then is the time to seek out your home. Perhaps only when you have come to understand that can you finally reach home.”

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Author:Karen Maitland
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