33 Quotes by Robert Beatty

It was true that she was a creature of the night. But she would decide for herself what that meant. She had two choices before her: to slink away and hide, or to dare to fight.

She realized now that her life wasn’t just about who she was, but about who she would become.

She might bandy back and forth with her pa about all sorts of things just for the jump of it – like refusing her grits, sleeping all day and hunting all night, and spying on the Vanderbilts and their guests – but she never argued about this. She knew when he said those words he was as serious as her dead momma. For all the spiny talk and all the sneak-about, sometimes you just stayed quiet and did what you were told because you sensed it was a good way to keep breathing.

And the sky was blood. The sky was time. The sky was the past.

She was so scared that it hurt to breathe. Her corset felt like Satan’s bony hand gripping her around her chest and squeezing her tight. Her limbs were hot with the burning drive to flee.

She marveled at how this one room contained the thoughts and voices of thousands of writers, people who had lived in different countries and different times, people who had told stories of the heart and of the mind, people who had studied ancient civilizations, the species of plants, and the flow of rivers.

It made her think that maybe God intended for them to all fit together, like a puzzle made whole.

I can’t do much, but I can do something, she thought, and if I can do even the smallest thing, then I am a powerful being.

Her pa had told her once that true courage wasn’t because you didn’t feel fear. True courage was when you were scared of something, but you did it anyway because it needed to be done.