Kindred Violence Quotes

How we cite our quotes: (Chapter.Paragraph) or (Chapter.Section.Paragraph)

Quote #1

I closed my eyes again remembering the way I had been hurt—remembering the pain. (Prologue.20)

Dana gets to the point where her life is so messed up that the only thing keeping her grounded in reality is the pain she feels after being whipped. It's super-unpleasant, but she finds she needs to focus on this pain as much as possible to keep from losing her grip on reality.

Quote #2

That was when I realized your arm wasn't just stuck, but that, somehow, it had been crushed right into the wall. (Prologue.31)

The violence we find in this book doesn't only come from people. People's physical circumstances can also lead to a lot of violence. In this scene, Dana transports through time to find that her arm has reappeared inside one of the walls of her house, crushing the arm completely.

Quote #3

"I asked her where you went […] and she got mad and said she didn't know. I asked her again later, and she hit me. And she never hits me." (2.2.51)

Rufus' mother has never hit him before, but there's something about watching Dana disappear that makes her so uncomfortable she has no other way of expressing herself. This detail just goes to show that people tend to react violently whenever they're confronted with something they don't understand.