Quotessence
Home / Books / Hamnet

Hamnet

Book by Maggie O'Farrell · 11 quotes · Duelo, Grief, Loss

Filter quotes by topic

AllDueloGriefLossTristezaAutorasEmpowermentHistóricaLiteratura InglesaLoss Of A ChildSalud MentalSorrowTrue Love

Hamnet Quotes

“The sight of the mark seemed to enrage the father further because he lifted his arm again, for a second blow, but the son reached up. He seized his father’s arm. He pushed, with all his might, against him and found, to his surprise, that his father’s body yielded under his. He could push this man, this leviathan, this monster of his childhood, back against the wall with very little effort. He did so. He kept his father there with the point of his elbow. He shook his father’s arm, like that of a puppet, and the wineskin dropped to the floor. He leant his face into his, noticing at the same time that he was looking down on him. That, he said to him, is the last time you will ever hit me.”

Empowerment
Book:Hamnet
Create image

“I find,' he says, his voice still muffled, 'that I am constantly wondering where he is. Where he has gone. It is like a wheel ceaselessly turning at the back of my mind. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, I am thinking: Where is he, where is he? He can't have just vanished. He must be somewhere. All I have to do is find him. I look for him everywhere, in every street, in every crowd, in every audience. That's what I am doing, when I look out at them all: I try to find him, or a version of him.”

GriefLoss Of A Child
Book:Hamnet
Create image

“He feels again the sensation he has had all his life: that she is the other side to him, that they fit together, him and her, like two halves of a walnut. That without her he is incomplete, lost. He will carry an open wound, down his side, for the rest of his life, where she had been ripped from him. How can he live without her? He cannot. It is like asking the heart to live without the lungs, like tearing the moon out of the sky and asking the stars to do its work, like expecting the barley to grow without the rain.”

Grief
Book:Hamnet
Create image

“She walks back, more slowly, the way she came. How odd it feels, to move along the same streets in reverse, like inking over old words, her feet the quill, going back over work, rewriting, erasing. Partings are strange. It seems so simple: one minute ago, four, five, he was here, at her side; now, he is gone. She was with him; she is alone. She feels exposed, chill, peeled like an onion. There is the stall they passed earlier, piled high with tin pots and cedar shavings. There is the woman they saw, still making her decision, holding two pots in her hands, weighing them, and how can she still be there, how can she still be engaged in the same activity, in the choosing of a pot, when such a change, such a transformation has occurred in Agnes's life? Her very world has cloven in two and here is the same dog dozing in a doorway. Here is a young woman, tying up clothing into bundles, just as she was doing when they passed. Here is her neighbour...giving her a grave nod as he walks by. Can he not see, can he not read that life as she knows it is over, that he is gone?” Hamnet, pp214-5”

Loss
Book:Hamnet
Create image

“She glanced up to see that her mother was doing the same and she wanted to say, Do you think of her, do you still catch yourself listening for her footsteps, for her voice, for the sound of her breathing at night, because I do, all the time. I still think that one day I might wake and she will be there, next to me, again; there will have been some wrinkle or pleat in time and we will be back to where we were, when she was living and breathing.”

LossSorrow
Book:Hamnet
Create image

“Cuando se la apretó aquel día, el día en que lo conoció, sintió… ¿qué? Algo sin igual, algo desconocido hasta entonces. Algo que no se esperaba en la mano de un joven de la villa, un bachiller con estudios y botas limpias. Algo de gran alcance: de eso estaba segura; con muchas capas y estratos, como un paisaje. Vio espacios y vacíos, partes densas, cuevas subterráneas, elevaciones y depresiones. No le dio tiempo a entender la totalidad de aquello: era demasiado grande y complejo. Escapaba a su comprensión casi por completo. Sabía que había más de lo que podía asimilar, que era más grande que los dos juntos.”

AutorasLiteratura InglesaHistórica
Book:Hamnet
Create image