Quotes by Sonya Hartnett

About Sonya Hartnett:

Sonya Louise Hartnett is an Australian author of fiction for adults, young adults, and children. She has been called "the finest Australian writer of her generation". For her career contribution to "children's and young adult literature in the broadest sense" Hartnett won the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award from the Swedish Arts Council in 2008, the biggest prize in children's literature.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

How does one craft happiness out of something as important, as complicated, as unrepeatable and as easily damaged as life?

Sonya Hartnett

I want my life to be mystifying," she declared, although she didn't know what she meant.

Sonya Hartnett

They thought back on the tales that the soldier had told. They remembered Hazel, the gentle Bethlehem donkey, who used the last of her strength helping those who needed her. They remembered the donkey who stood on the mountain and accepted suffering ...

Sonya Hartnett

I would always be lonely, but no more alone.

Sonya Hartnett

Evangeline's obliviousness was a reason to like her rather than not: I liked least those schoolfellows whose awareness of me invariably caused misery.

Sonya Hartnett

Yeah, reflections! The same, but different. Like twins - like blood brothers! And when you need something bad done, like punishment or revenge, you'll just ask me, and I will do it -

Sonya Hartnett

I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of a cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.

Sonya Hartnett

I looked along the aisle and saw her, and it was as if I saw her for the first time. Everything changed. The ancient featureless interior of me spangled orange, mint, cat-blue. I looked back to the window immediately, my face damp, my breath caught. ...

Sonya Hartnett

I thought about how stupid it is, that all of us are born destined to desire somebody else, though desire brings with it such disappointment and pain. Humankind's history must be scored bloody with heartbreak. This hankering for affection is a blight...

Sonya Hartnett

She doesn't understand that doors, walls, fences, ceilings - they're helpless to keep out what determinedly desires to get in.

Sonya Hartnett

Affection makes fools. Always, without exception, love digs a channel that's sooner or later flooded by the briny water of despair.

Sonya Hartnett

Every atom in me feels composed of lead. This is what dying is: a pull to the ground.

Sonya Hartnett

I am dying: it's a beautiful word. Like the long slow sigh of the cello: dying. But the sound of it is the only beautiful thing about it.

Sonya Hartnett

My life was pouring out my feet and seeping through cracks in the floor; yet still I knelt and did not move, for fear she'd let go my hands. Let me stay, I wanted to beg: Please don't make me go.

Sonya Hartnett

Annie is my wife, and she will remain wi' me as my wife, subject only to my rule. I will suffer no man to dishonor her or lay hand upon her so long as I live.

Sonya Hartnett

She told him ... how her heart had fairly skipped a beat when she'd seen him standing in the middle of the road dressed as a true Highland warrior. "If I hadna been in love wi' you already, I'd have fallen in love wi' you then." He grinned, his whisk...

Sonya Hartnett

You think to judge me, MacKinnon? I've littered the ground wi' the corpses of men like you." Iain raised his blade and smiled. "You've never met a man like me.

Sonya Hartnett

He was, she realised, quite graceful. The very idea surprised her. Male grace was a quality she'd never thought of beyond the ballroom; either a man could dance a quadrille with skill and without stepping on her feet or he could not. But here was ano...

Sonya Hartnett

He didn't see the look his brothers shared or overhear the vow they made to one another--that if any one of the four of them were to make it back from Ticonderoga, it would be Iain.

Sonya Hartnett

It wilna end wi' me, Campbell. Slay me, and you'll face my brothers and after them my Muhheconneok kin. You cannae possibly kill us all.

Sonya Hartnett

Author Bio

  • NameSonya Hartnett
  • Descriptioncontemporary Australian author
  • BornFebruary 23, 1968
  • CountryAustralia
  • ProfessionWriter; Novelist
  • AwardsAstrid Lindgren Memorial Award