Jean Webster Quotes

Half of the time I don't know what they're talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language.

I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.

The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being pliable.

It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.

I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, You never answered my question and it was very important. ARE YOU BALD?

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.

I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.

Please be thinking about me. I'm quite lonely and I want to be thought about

‎Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail. Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

She was by nature a sunny soul

The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.

It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones.

It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!

Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor.

This is your heart. Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key.

Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines. That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness.

He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf! And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me. But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.

I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win.

I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.

Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!

It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity.

Good manners are not merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe. They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have got to learn them.

I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen.

He has gone and we are missing him ! When you get accustomed to people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, it does leave an empty, gnawing sort of sensation.

إن معظم الناس لا يعيشون، إنهم يتسابقون و يجرون، إنهم يحاولون الوصول إلى هدف يلوح بعيدا فى الأفق، ومن خلال حرارة الجرى ولهاث الأنفاس يفقدون كل قدرة على الرؤية الصحيحة للأرض الجميلة الهادئة التى يمرقون خلالها؛ ثم بعد ذلك فإن أول شىء يدركونه ويحسون به فعلا هو أنهم بلغوا أرذل العمر و أن التعب قد أضناهم ولا يهم بعد ذلك إذا كانوا قد بلغوا أهدافهم أم لا. إننى قررت أن أجلس و أتمهل فى الطريق و أنهمك فى جمع وتكويم نتف من المتع الصغيرة

If this book should ever roam, Box its ears and send it home.

Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life - written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author?

إنني أنمو يومياً يا والدي وسوف أصبح شخصية جميلة، هذه الشخصية ربما تختفي وتضعف عندما تهب بعض الأعاصير وتثور بعض الدوامات، لكنها ستتألق وتشع نوراً عندما تشرق الشمس

Perhaps when two people are exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when apart, they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them.

... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now -- I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.

وهكذا هو الحال مع كل الناس،فأنا لا أتفق مع النظرية القائلة بأن المصائب والبلايا وخيبة الأمل المتكررة هى التى تخلق الشخصية القوية، إنهم السعداء فقط هم اللذين ينصخون بالحب والحنان..

من الممتع حقا أن نعيش الكتب لا أن نكتبها!

The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable; it is fun to plan a career, but in all probability I shan't turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person.

I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me.

اعتقد أن ما يهم الإنسان ليست الأفراح الكبرى لكن المسرات و المتع الصغيرة التى تصنع الشىء الكثير، لقد اكتشفت السر الحقيقى للسعادة يا والدى؛ وهو أن تعيش فى الآن فقط و تهتم باللحظة الحاضرة. لا تندم على الماضى أو تعمل حسابا للمستقبل، لكن عليك أن تحصل على أكثر ما تستطيع من هذه اللحظة الحاضرة التى تعيش فيها

I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant...I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it.

Don't let politeness interfere with truth

Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes this, what would be the judgment of a critical public?

The awful thing about a vacation is that the moment it begins your happiness is already clouded by its approaching end.

إن المتاعب الكبرى التي نواجهنا في الحياة هي التي تحتاج إلى الأخلاق القويمة، وكل إنسان في إمكانه أن يقابل أية أزمة أو مصيبة بشجاعة، ولكن قل لي بالله عليك، كيف يواجه المرء المضايقات اليومية الصغيرة بروح مرحة منطلقة؟ أعتقد أن هذا يلزمه عزيمة من حديد

What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change every three days. "Wuthering Heights." Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. She had never known any men in her life; how could she imagine a man like Heathcliff? I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier Asylum - I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author?

One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes.

It is funny how certain places get connected with certain people, and you never go back without thinking of them.

I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!

I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. ~Jershua Abbott

Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost feminine.

Most people don’t live; they just race.

I like to pretend that you belong to me, just to play with the idea, but of course I know you don't. I'm alone, really--with my back to the wall fighting the world--and I get sort of gaspy when I think about it. I put it out of my mind, and keep on pretending; but don't you see, Daddy?

Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy.

You must remember that you cannot form your character in a moment, my dear. Character is a plant of slow growth and the seeds must be planted early.

I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation.

The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed, but the one that I occupy.

The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world to use them in. Use them well, and you will be provided for; use them ill, and you will want,

We all have a collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are just the ones that insist upon sticking.

It's nice to look forward to, isn't it—a life of work and play and little daily adventures side by side with somebody you love?

I stood alone in the winter twilight, and I took a deep breath of clear cold air, and I felt beautifully, wonderfully, electrically free

The world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.

Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father's side they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches of her family tree there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine silky hair and extra long tails.

We belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn't it seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, very sweet. And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant. Yours, for ever and ever, Judy

But what's the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr. Smith, to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, there are just two methods: one must either coax or be disagreeable. I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must be disagreeable.

think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon.

You mustn’t get me used to too many luxuries. One doesn’t miss what one has never had; but it’s awfully hard going without things after one has commenced thinking they are his.

The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.

This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep. I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia and Leonora Fenton - and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sallie stayed to help wash the dishes.

I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me look like a Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott - Oh, my!

We had a bishop this morning and what do you think he said? "The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this,'The poor ye have always with you.' They were put here in order to keep us charitable." The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up after service and told him what I thought.

Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life- written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and forseeing to the exact hour the time you would die. How many people do you suppose you have the courage to read it then? Or how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope, without surprise? Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about so often. But imagine how deadly monotonous it would be if nothing unexpected could happen between meals?

In the country, especially, there are such a lot of entertaining things. I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view, and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much as though I owned the land--and with no taxes to pay!

I've read seventeen novels and bushels of poetry-- really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverel and Alice in Wonderland. Also Emerson's Essays and Lockhart's Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbon's Roman Empire and half of Benvenuto Cellini's Life--wasn't he entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast.

Eleven pages— this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop.

Whatever sky's above me, I've a heart for any fate.

إنه من الخطورة بمكان أن تتباحث مع آل سامبل في الدين، فإلههم (وقد ورثوه كما هو من جدودهم البيوريتان) هو إله متعصب ظالم ومنتقم، وأشكر السماء لأنني لم أرث إلهي من أحد، فأنا حرة أستطيع أن أشكله كما أرغب، هو تعالى بالنسبة لي إله طيب عطوف واسع الصدر جداً ويفهم جيداً - هو أيضاً يملك إحساساً بالمرح !

Behold me - a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave Lock Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensation to come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world - as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.

you just want a thing hard enough and keep on trying, you do get it in the end.

One does not miss what one has never had.

I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue. Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story?

I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination.

It makes me almost hope I'm not a genius; they must be very wearying to have about - and awfully destructive to the furniture.

Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about so often. But imagine how DEADLY monotonous it would be if nothing unexpected could happen between meals.

I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time with my heroine— I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you.

But Julia hasn’t a bit of tact; and men, I find, require a great deal. They purr if you rub them the right way and spit if you don’t. (That isn’t a very elegant metaphor. I mean it figuratively.)

I think that every one , no matter how many troubles the may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. And if I ever have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up.

It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires SPIRIT. It's

when we women get our rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours.

She was worshiping under the blue sky, to the jubilant chanting of the birds.

You know that I've always had a very special feeling towards you; you

same. Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy.

I don't believe it pays to be a great author.

Kualitas paling penting yang perlu dimiliki oleh seseorang adalah imajinasi. Imajinasi membuat orang mampu menempatkan diri mereka di tempat orang lain. Imajinasi membuat mereka menjadi orang yang baik dan bisa bersimpati serta penuh pengertian.

Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred.

You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It make them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children.

There are such lots of adventures out in the fields! It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them. Ow

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones—I've

They are so accustomed to the feeling that their senses are deadened to it;

It’s a relief not having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. (I dare say I’m blasphemous; but you’d be, too, if you’d offered as much obligatory thanks as I have.)

This new book is going to get itself finished— and published! You see if it doesn't.

It seemed like an unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine to one hundred little faces when what they need is a mother apiece.

One doesn't miss what one has never had; but it's awfully hard going without things after one has commenced thinking they are his/hers by natural right.

My brother and I both stare unabashedly at her ass. It’s a cute ass. The jeans fit her well. When my cock stiffens in my slacks, I let out a choked sound and quickly retreat. I’m

أكره ضوء القمر لأنه جميل وهو ليس هُنا ليراه معي

The way people are forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying: “Perhaps it’s all for the best,” when they are perfectly dead sure it’s not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I’m for a more militant religion!

That is—you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn't care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life.

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be forever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant. It's like farming. You can have extensive farming and intensive farming; well, I am going to have intensive living after this. I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live, they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of little happinesses.

You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children. But the John Grier Home instantly stamped out the slightest flicker that appeared. Duty was the one quality that was encouraged. I don't think children ought to know the meaning of the word; it's odious, detestable. They ought to do everything from love.

You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room door--"The Lord Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits. It's all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a park bench must learn a more militant creed than that.

That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down.

I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I belonged to somebody now, and it’s a very comfortable sensation.

see marriage as a man must, a good, sensible workaday institution; but awfully curbing to one's liberty. Somehow, after you're married forever, life has lost its feeling of adventure. There aren't any romantic possibilities waiting to surprise you around each corner.

You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in a class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.

The way people are for ever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, 'Perhaps it's all for the best,' when they are perfectly dead sure it's not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I'm for a more militant religion!

The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it a success.

the modern generation being flippant and superficial. He says that we are losing the old ideals of earnest endeavour and true scholarship; and particularly is this falling-off noticeable in our disrespectful attitude towards organized authority. We no longer pay a seemly deference to our superiors. I

Don't you think it would be interesting if you really could read the story of your life - written perfectly and truthfully by an omniscient author? ... how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope and without surprise?

Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of little happinesses, even if I never become a Great Author.

حين ينسجم شخصان، ويشعران بالسعادة حين يكونان معًا، ويحسان بالوحدة حين يفترقان، فليس عليهما السماح لشيءٍ في العالم بالوقوف بينهما

She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be amused.

it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!

When you get accustomed to people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing sort of sensation.

Where is the fun of living if you are going to make yourself a slave to all sorts of petty rules?" asked Patty wearily.

Hal paling menyenangkan di dunia adalah berlari dari hal-hal yang seharusnya kau kerjakan - Patty.

I don’t agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness.

Examinations are even entertaining, if you know the right answers.

Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living. 'These

لا بد أنك بت تعرفني جيداً الان بما يكفي لتدرك أنني لا أعني الأمور الحمقاء التي أقولها، فليس لساني أدنى صلة بعقلي ، بل يمضي وحده من تلقاء نفسه.

يسهل تلقين معتقد لطفل عادي لديه عائلة عادية وسقف يظله، لكن لابد للمرء الذي لا يملك سوى مقاعد المتنزه ملجأ إن اصابته محنة أن يتعلم مبدأ اكثر مقاومة.

Estoy pasando por un cambio total de mi carácter. Odio la inestabilidad. Me asusta la idea de ver mi vida desorganizada.

Saya memang suka pada topi-topi serta benda-benda yang cantik, tapi saya tidak boleh menggadaikan masa depan saya untuk membeli barang-barang seperti itu.

Yang terpenting bukanlah kenikmatan-kenikmatan berskala besar, melainkan bagaimana kita mampu mengeksploitasi yang kecil-kecil secara maksimal.

Seseorang tidak akan merindukan apa yang tidak dia miliki, tapi sungguh sulit rasanya hidup tanpa benda-benda tertentu setelah dia terbiasa memilikinya.

ثمة جرف شديد الانحدار في حياة المرء دومًا، فإما أن يبحر منه أو يحطم نفسه فيه.

I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness.

If you just want a thing hard enough and keep on trying, you do get it in the end.

سأتظاهر بأن الحياة كلها ليست سوى لعبة علي أن ألعبها بمهارة وإنصاف قدر استطاعتي . وإن خسرت ، فسأرفع كتفيّ وأضحك وسأفعل ذلك إن ربحت أيضًا

Dear Judy: Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money? Me - I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is the raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo.

the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.

Do you think a woman of that age is attractive if she deals in subterfuges and evasions? Character," she added solemnly, "is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early.

It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones—I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now.

Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

Whereas a woman—whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge—is fundamentally and always interested in clothes.

I am beginning to feel at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world--as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

Taking a chance, I slide my hand between us, finding the warmth between her legs over her jeans. “Here?” “Y-Yes.” “I can make it better.” I tug at the button and then lower the zipper. “I’ll kiss it all better.

Our lives were absolutely monotonous and uneventful. Nothing nice ever happened, except ice-cream on Sundays, and even that was regular. In all the eighteen years I was there I only had one adventure — when the woodshed burned. We had to get up in the night and dress so as to be ready in case the house should catch. But it didn't catch and we went back to bed. Everybody likes a few surprises; it's a perfectly natural human craving. But I never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me to the office to tell me that Mr. John Smith was going to send me to college. And then she broke the news so gradually that it just barely shocked me.

Julia and Sallie and I all had new dresses. Do you want to hear about them? Julia's was cream satin and gold embroidery and she wore purple orchids. It was a DREAM and came from Paris, and cost a million dollars. Sallie's

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque, but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don't seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk. I

Tu credi nel libero arbitrio? Io sì, senza riserve. Non sono per niente d'accordo con quei filosofi che ritengono che ogni azione sia assolutamente inevitabile e che il risultato venga automaticamente da un'aggregazione di cause remote. Questa è la dottrina più immorale di cui abbia mai sentito parlare: in questo modo nessuno dovrebbe essere biasimato per ciò che accade. Se un uomo crede nel fatalismo dovrebbe soltanto rimanere seduto e dire: “Che sia fatto il volere di Dio”, e continuare a stare immobile fino a che cade a terra stecchito. Io, invece, credo fermamente nella mia libera volontà e nel mio potere di agire in piena autonomia. È questa la forza che smuove le montagne.

I’m a foreigner in the world and I don’t understand the language. It’s a miserable feeling. I’ve had it all my life. At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. I was queer and different and everybody knew it.

I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the fact that no rule exists against it.

I'm getting old... Soon I'll be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty; and do you think any one will love me then if I deal in subterfuges and evasions? Character, my dear girls, is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early.

but you won't mind, will you, if I tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for another man? You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. I suspect that my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a very long time. I

But now—I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the sign-boards that can fall on your head, or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.

Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew sober as the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hers no longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come to be the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end.

You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language.

How in the world," Georgie demanded, "do you ever make them let you do all these things? I stuck in three innocent little thumb-tacks to-day, and Peters descended upon me bristling with wrath, and said he'd report me if I didn't pull them out." "We never ask," explained Patty. "It's the only way.

There's never any use bothering to tell people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct them—that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly.

When a couple of adopting parents are choosing a daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though I were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a little thing turns the balance! The child smiles, and a loving home is hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever.

أشعر أن رؤيتك ستكون مبهجة وأنا أشعر بالكآبة كثيراً في الآونة الآخيرة، تعرف يا عزيزي أنني أحبك حين تكون أمام ناظري أكثر بكثير مما أحبك وأنا أفكر بك على البعد. أعتقد أن لك تأثيراً مخدرات. أحياناً وبعد غيابك بوقت طويل تبدأ رقيتك بالذبول قليلاً، ولكن ما إن أراك حتى يعود كل شيء. لقد كنت بعيد لوقت طويل جدا، فتعال أرجوك واسحرني ثانية.

Isn't it fun to work— or don't you ever do it? It's especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking. I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest book you ever saw— it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm limp all over.

He paid me another visit this afternoon. I invited him to accommodate himself in one of Mrs. Lippett's electric-blue chairs, and then sat down opposite to enjoy the harmony. He was dressed in a mustard-colored homespun, with a dash of green and a glint of yellow in the weave, a "heather mixture" calculated to add life to a dull Scotch moor. Purple socks and a red tie, with an amethyst pin, completed the picture. Clearly, your paragon of a doctor is not going to be of much assistance in

Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron. Mrs. Lippett, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of Trustees and lady visitors. Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the confines of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees.

The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being PLIABLE.

It isn’t the great big pleasures that count the most; it’s making a great deal out of the little ones—I’ve discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be forever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.

I’m going to enjoy every second, and I’m going to know I’m enjoying it while I’m enjoying it. Most people don’t live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn’t make any difference whether they’ve reached the goal or not.

Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia.

Why on earth don’t they go to men’s colleges and urge the students not to allow their manly natures to be crushed out by too much mental application?

I know lots of girls (Julia, for instance) who never know that they are happy. They are so accustomed to the feeling that their senses are deadened to it,

Thank heaven I don’t inherit any God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He’s kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding—and He has a sense of humor.

I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world—as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people’s places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children. But the John Grier Home instantly stamped out the slightest flicker that appeared. Duty was the one quality that was encouraged. I don’t think children ought to know the meaning of the word; it’s odious, detestable. They ought to do everything from love.

I think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon.

Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events? It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh--I really think that requires SPIRIT. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh--also if I win.

I think that everyone, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. And if I ever have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up.

The way people are forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying, “Perhaps it’s all for the best,” when they are perfectly dead sure it’s not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia.

We are getting the most dreadful lessons in philosophy — all of Schopenhauer for to-morrow. The professor doesn’t seem to realize that we are taking any other subject. He’s a queer old duck; he goes about with his head in the clouds and blinks dazedly when occasionally he strikes solid earth. He tries to lighten his lectures with an occasional witticism — and we do our best to smile, but I assure you his jokes are no laughing matter. He spends his entire time between classes in trying to figure out whether matter really exists or whether he only thinks it exists.

Thank the good Lord!” cried the mother, when she grasped the fact that the small piece of paper was one hundred dollars. “It wasn’t the good Lord at all,” said I, “it was Daddy-LongLegs.” “But it was the good Lord who put it in his mind,” said she. “Not at all! I put it in his mind myself,” said I.

I never told you, did I, that Amasai and Carrie got married last May? They are still working here, but so far as I can see it has spoiled them both. She used just to laugh when he tramped in mud or dropped ashes on the floor, but now—you should hear her scold! And she doesn’t curl her hair any longer. Amasai, who used to be so obliging about beating rugs and carrying wood, grumbles if you suggest such a thing. Also his neckties are quite dingy — black and brown, where they used to be scarlet and purple. I’ve determined never to marry. It’s a deteriorating process, evidently.

I was so dazed when I got to the station that I almost took a train for St. Louis. And you were pretty dazed, too. You forgot to give me any tea. But we’re both very, very happy, aren’t we?

لقد قررت الجلوس على جانب الطريق وتكديس الكثير من السعادات الصغيرة، حتى إن لم أصبح كاتبة عظيمة. هل رأيت يومًا فيلسوفة مثل التي أنوي أن أكونها؟

I left theirs in the bath tub and carried yours in the class procession.

The aim of the John Grier Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.

You live in a glass house, Mr. Smith.

إنّه لأكثر مُتعة أن تحيا الكتب بدلًا من كتابتها

There is always a Cape Horn in one's life that one either weathers or wrecks oneself on." It's terribly true; and the trouble is that you can't always recognize your Cape Horn when you see it. The sailing is sometimes pretty foggy, and you're wrecked before you know it.

It isn’t the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit.

I am learning so many new things every day that when each Saturday night comes I look back on the Sallie of last Saturday night, amazed at her ignorance.

Non sono le grandi disgrazie della vita che esigono forza di carattere da noi. Chiunque può fronteggiare una grave crisi e rimettersi in piedi con coraggio dopo una tragedia, ma per sopportare le piccole noie quotidiane con il sorriso sulle labbra, ecco, per quello penso che ci voglia molto coraggio e determinazione!

Non sono i grandi piaceri quelli che contano di più nella vita. È il saper approfittare delle piccole cose. Io, Papà, ho scoperto il vero segreto della felicità, che consiste nel vivere l'adesso, nel non rimpiangere in continuazione il passato o nell'anticipare il futuro, ma nel trarre il massimo possibile proprio dall'istante che stiamo vivendo. È come lavorare la terra: puoi avere un tipo di coltura estensiva o intensiva; be', io preferisco avere un tipo di vita "intensiva". Voglio godermi ogni secondo e sapere per certo di goderlo esattamente nel momento in cui lo godo.

The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith 215

The only explanation I can think of is that he is insane, and there are so many insane people in the world that it isn't even interesting.

turn on a man, humiliate him, wound his pride, crush him under foot and think no more of the matter than if he had stepped on a worm. And

It’s setting a pretty high value on his own soul. I should never rate mine as being worth a lifetime of effort.’ ‘I suppose a person’s soul is worth whatever price he chooses to set.

Oh, of course, if a man keeps his soul in a bandbox he can produce it immaculate in the end; but what’s a soul for if it’s not for use? He would much better live in the world with his fellow-men, and help them keep their souls clean, even at the risk of getting his own a little dusty.

so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training.

What seems to you the right thing for me to do? Judy

Anyway, that's the way I feel—and I've refused to marry him. I

Sözünü ettiğim şey büyük keyifler değil; önemli olan küçük şeylerden büyük mutluluklar çıkartmak - mutluluğun sırrını keşfettim Dede ve bu şimdiyi yaşamak. Geçmiş yüzünden asla pişmanlık duymamak, geleceğe ilişkin beklentiler içinde olmamak, bunların yerine şu anda yaşanılan andan olabildiğince çok şey çıkartmak." Bir Gençlik Masalı (Daddy-Long-Legs #1)

You should see the way this college is studying!