Robert Newton Peck Quotes

Never miss a chance...to keep your mouth shut.

Somehow, the Good Lord don't want to see no man start a cold morning with just black coffee.

There would be no work on this day. A day no pigs would die.

Need is a weak word. has nothing to do with what people get. Ain't what you need that matters. It's what you do.

I stayed there until the fire died. So it would not have to die alone.

Fences sure are funny, aren't they, Papa?" "How so?" "Well, you be friends with Mr. Tanner and all. But we keep this fence up like it was war. I guess that humans are the only things on earth that take everything they own and fence it off.

When you re the only one to do something it always gets done.

Oh, Papa. My heart’s broke.

The sky’s a good place to look,” he said. “And I got a notion it’s a good place to go.

I’d heard about the Baptists from Jacob Henry’s mother. According to her, Baptists were a strange lot. They put you in water to see how holy you were. Then they ducked you under the water three times. Didn’t matter a whit if you could swim or no. If you didn’t come up, you got dead and your mortal soul went to Hell. But if you did come up, it was even worse. You had to be a Baptist.

Aren't you a Republican? Just about everyone is in the whole town of Learning." "No, I'm not a Republican. And I'm not no Democrat. I'm not nothing." "Why not?" "Because I'm not allowed to vote." "Me either. You have to be twenty-one to vote. I'm only twelve." "Reckon I'm soon looking at sixty." "Then why can't you vote? Is it because you're a Shaker?" "No, it's account of I can't read or write. When a man cannot do these things, people think his head is weak. Even when he's proved his back is strong. "Who decides?" "Men who look at me and take me not for what I be. Men who only see my mark, my X, when I can't sign my name. They can't see how I true a beam to build our barn, or see that the rows of corn in my field are straight as fences. They just seem me walk the street in Learning in clothes made me by my own woman. They do not care that my coat is strudy and keeps me warm. They'll not care that I owe no debt and I am beholding to no man.

Try an’ try,” he said, “but when it comes day’s end, I can’t wash the pig off me. And your mother never complains. Not once, in all these years, has she ever said that I smell strong. I said once to her that I was sorry.” “What did Mama say?” “She said I smelled of honest work, and that there was no sorry to be said or heard.

We’d learned in school that the city of London, England, is the largest city in the whole wide world. Maybe so. But it couldn’t have been much bigger than Rutland.

The wind was as ripe as apples, so full of fall that you could almost bite every breath.

It always looked to me like she was smiling. In fact, I know she was. Lots if things smile, like a flower to the sun. And one thing sure. I knew that just like I could smile to see Pinky, she sure could smile to see me.

No, sir. I won’t complain. Except when I move it sharp and sudden, my arm is real numb. It’s the rest of me that’s in misery.” “Where?” “My backside and my privates. I’m stuck so full of prickers, it makes me smart just to think on it.

Papa, ain’t it a caution that we can only eat two legs off a frog, ’stead of four.” And he said: “Rob, here’s what you do. You catch a real big bullfrog and make friends with him. And teach him to jump backwards. That’ll make his front legs big as the hind.

A fence sets men together, not apart.

of all the things in the world to see, I reckon the heavens at sundown has got to be my favorite sight. How about you?” “The sky’s a good place to look,” he said. “And I got a notion it’s a good place to go.

When I fly over your ranch, Soup, know what I’ll do to say howdy?” “Pee out the window.

Smiling, he smuggled me an extra-tender ear of buttery sweet corn, which I gnawed to cob in three seconds. Aware I no longer ate human. Rather like a homeless dog.

Years ago, Mrs. Krickitt had warned me, in a scholarly tone, about the Heavenly wrath of an Old Testament God. I didn't understand. So our housekeeper explained it: "Nature," she said. "When our blessed Mother Nature corrects us, she acts violently. Be it a earthquake, tidal wave, or volcano spittle. Nature's adjustments are usual massive, beyond our comprehension in magnitude and might. When our Earth demands a fixing, the Almighty allows Mother Nature to smite us, wielding a heavy hammer." "Why?" I'd asked her. Mrs. Krickitt had smiled and touched my hand. "To remind us mortals, Titus Timothy, that it is not we frail things who are supreme.

Sooner or later, animals will let loose a human trait, as men sometimes behave like a beast.

To watch him sit a horse was better than hearing music. Every motion did easy. He and his animal were one graceful entity, as though they'd not been asked to work, but to waltz.

Cows are stupid. Almost as brainless as the humans who herd 'em on horseback.

Titus, the secret of joyfulness is hawg simple. I'm happy. Because I know who and what I be.

No matter how tender you care about people, I was discovering, you'll not alter anyone. Best afford them the noblest gift that a man can offer his neighbor. Acceptance.