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Harvey

by Mary Chase · 1944

When Elwood P. Dowd starts to introduce his imaginary friend Harvey, a six and a half foot rabbit, to guests at a dinner party, his sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate. She decides to… more

11 quotes ★ 4.08 (10,060) Classics

Quotes from the Book

Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me.
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Doctor I've wrestled with reality for 40 years and I'm happy to say that I've finally won out over it.
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I didn't want to die - not before I'd finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.
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In this world, Elwood, you must be oh-so-smart or -oh-so-pleasant. For years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. And you may quote me.
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Myrtle Mae, you have a lot to learn, and I hope you never learn it.
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In this world, you must be oh so smart, or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. ~Elwood P. Dowd
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Against the background of the War and its brutal stupidity those men had stood glorified by the thing which sought to destroy them…. I
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I've been spending my life among flyspecks... while miracles have been leaning on lampposts at 4th and Fairfax
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Rambling among woods and meadows, I could ‘take sweet counsel’ with the country-side; sitting on a grassy bank and lifting my face to the sun, I could feel an intensity of thankfulness such as I’d never known before the War; listening to the little brook that bubbled out of a copse and across a rushy field, I could discard my personal relationship with the military machine and its ant-like armies. On
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We were carrying something in our heads which belonged to us alone, and to those we had left behind us in the battle.
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I didn’t want to die – not before I’d finished reading The Return of the Native anyhow.
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About Mary Chase

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About the book

When Elwood P. Dowd starts to introduce his imaginary friend Harvey, a six and a half foot rabbit, to guests at a dinner party, his sister, Veta, has seen as much of his eccentric behavior as she can tolerate. She decides to have him committed to a sanitarium to spare her daughter, Myrtle Mae, and their family, from future embarrassment. Problems arise, however, when Veta herself is mistakenly assumed to be on the fringe of lunacy when she explains to doctors that years of living with Elwood's hallucination have caused her to see Harvey also! The doctors commit Veta instead of Elwood, but when the truth comes out, the search is on for Elwood and his invisible companion. When he shows up at the sanitarium looking for his lost friend Harvey it seems that the mild-mannered Elwood's delusion has had a strange influence on more than one of the doctors. Only at the end does Veta realize that m

Book details

First published
1944
Goodreads rating
4.08 (10k ratings)

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