Kim Edwards Quotes

She had died at age twelve, and by now she was nothing but the memory of love-- nothing, now, but bones.

~ Kim Edwards

You can't stop time. You can't capture light. You can only turn your face up and let it rain down.

~ Kim Edwards

Rows and rows of books lined the shelves and I let my eyes linger on the sturdy spines, thinking how human books were, so full of ideas and images, worlds imagined, worlds perceived; full of fingerprints and sudden laughter and the sighs of readers, too. It was humbling to consider all these authors, struggling with this word or that phrase, recording their thoughts for people they'd never meet. In that same way, the detritus of the boxes was humbling - receipts, jotted notes, photos with no inscriptions, all of it once held together by the fabric of lives now finished, gone.

~ Kim Edwards

Some dreams matter, illuminate a crucial choice or reveal some intuition that's trying to push its way to the surface. Other, though, are detritus, the residue of the day reassembling itself in some disjointed and chaotic way ... Frantic dreams, they left me tired, and I woke grouchy to another rainy day, the sky so densely gray and the rain so thick that I couldn't that I couldn't see the opposite shore [p, 166]

~ Kim Edwards

... the Iroquois take dreams very seriously. They see them as the secret wishes of the soul--the heart's desire, so to speak. Not all dreams, maybe, but the important ones. [p.254]

~ Kim Edwards

After all these years, I feel so free. Who knows where I might fly?

~ Kim Edwards

It's funny how things seem different, suddenly.

~ Kim Edwards

No one could suspect the intricate mysteries of her heart.

~ Kim Edwards

The thing is, I used to like that: feeling special because I knew something no one else did. It's a kind of power, isn't it, knowing a secret? But lately I don't like it so much, knowing this. It's not really mine to know, is it?

~ Kim Edwards

Once, this whole world had been hidden beneath a shallow sea.

~ Kim Edwards

All that sunny afternoon, traveling north and east, Caroline believed absolutely in the future. And why not? For if the worst had already happened to them in the eyes of the world, then surely, surely, it was the worst that they left behind them now.

~ Kim Edwards

Away from the bright motion of the party, she carried her sadness like a dark stone clenched in her palm.

~ Kim Edwards

She imagined herself as some sort of vessel to be filled up with love. But it wasn't like that. The love was within her all the time, and its only renewal came from giving it away.

~ Kim Edwards

It seemed there was no end at all to the lies a person could tell, once she got started.

~ Kim Edwards

He'd kept this silence because his own secrets were darker, more hidden, and because he believed that his secrets had created hers.

~ Kim Edwards

In some deep place in her heart, Caroline had kept alive the silly romantic notion that somehow David Henry had once known her as no one else ever could. But it was not true. He had never even glimpsed her.

~ Kim Edwards

Norah watched him, serious and utterly absorbed in his task, overcome by the simple fact of his existence.

~ Kim Edwards

Photography is all about secrets. The secrets we all have and will never tell.

~ Kim Edwards

He could hardly imagine anymore what his life would be without the weight of his hidden knowledge. He'd come to think of it as a kind of penance. It was self-destructive, he could see that, but that was the way things were. People smoked, they jumped out of airplanes, they drank too much and got into their cars and drove without seat belts.

~ Kim Edwards

Then she had been a fiancee, a young wife, and a mother, and she had discovered that these words were far too small ever to contain the experience.

~ Kim Edwards

Think of it, Dad. What if I have it in me to do that, and I don't try?

~ Kim Edwards

The world beyond the water was a blue of green and stone and blue. A moment later Yoshi pushed through, the water pouring down in sheets so smooth it looked like glass, and stepped into the calm [p. 296]

~ Kim Edwards

Each letter has a shape, she told them, one shape in the world and no other, and it is your responsibility to make it perfect.

~ Kim Edwards

You're right, Norah, anything can happen, anytime. But what goes wrong isn't your fault. You can't spend the rest of your life tiptoeing around to try and avert disaster. It won't work. You'll just end up missing the life you have.

~ Kim Edwards

You don't know when you are immersed in a book what the reaction to it will be, but I feel great about 'The Lake of Dreams.'

~ Kim Edwards

I lived for two years in Odawara, a castle town an hour outside of Tokyo, near the sea. It's a beautiful place, and I drew on my experiences there when writing 'The Lake of Dreams.'

~ Kim Edwards

'The Lake of Dreams' grew gradually, over many years, elements and ideas accruing until they gained enough critical mass to become a novel.

~ Kim Edwards

You don't want to engage in road rage when the person in the next car might be your child's future teacher or your dentist's father.

~ Kim Edwards

My first job was in a nursing home - a terrible place in retrospect. It was in an old house, and the residents were so lonely. People rarely visited them. I only stayed there a couple of months, but it made a strong impression on me.

~ Kim Edwards

Many Lexington natives believe they live in a special place, one impossible to leave. I'm not so sure about that - or it's more accurate to say I think a more general truth exists beneath it: the place you first call home stays with you always, whether you remain or go.

~ Kim Edwards