“What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem might cruel and unfair, but that's how life is a part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“That was as rough a thing as I ever heard tell of happening to a boy. And I'm mighty proud to learn how my boy stood up to it. You couldn't ask any more of a grown man... It's not a thing you can forget. I don't guess it's a thing you ought to forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that's how life is part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“Well, when you're fourteen years old, you can't afford to mix in a rock fight with your five-year-old brother. You can't do it, even when you're in the right. You just can't explain a thing like that to your folks. All they'll do is point out how much bigger you are, how unfair it is to your little brother.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“When it came to gunfire Jumper didn’t have any more sense than a red ant in a hot skillet.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“Now nothing was left hanging to the pole but the frazzled ends of the snapped blades.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“... I guessed that when you are nearly a man, you have to learn to put up with a lot of aggravation from little old bitty kids.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“I reached in and let him lick my hand. 'Yeller,' I said, 'I'll be back. I'm promising that I'll be back.”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“Then at night, we could hardly sleep. This”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“You're getting to be a big boy; and while I'm gone, you'll be the man of the family. I want you to act like one. You take care of Mama and Little Arliss. You look after the work and don't wait around for your mama to point out what needs to be done. Think you can do that?”
― Fred Gipson, quote from Old Yeller
“KNOWLT HOHEIMER
I was the first fruits of the battle of Missionary Ridge.
When I felt the bullet water my heart
I wished I had staid at home and gone to jail
For stealing the hogs of Curl Trenary,
Instead of running away and joining the army.
Rather a thousand times the country jail
That to lie under his marble figure with wings,
And this granite pedestal
Bearing the words, «Pro Patria».
What do they mean, anyway?”
― Edgar Lee Masters, quote from Spoon River Anthology
“When the whole world is crazy, it doesn't pay to be sane.”
― Terry Goodkind, quote from The Pillars of Creation
“She thought about how it was to have been a woman in the prime of life, with children and a man, and then to lose all that, becoming old and a widow, powerless. But even so she did not feel she understood his shame, his agony of humiliation. Perhaps only a man could feel so. A woman got used to shame.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from Tehanu
“I stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. That he could just
disappear, along with everything rich and strange he’d brought into my life.
Vanished, like magic.”
― Karen Chance, quote from Curse the Dawn
“I am an ambassador," Akretenesh warned me, anger bringing his confidence back. "You cannot shoot."
"I don't mean to," I reassured him, still smiling. I adopted his soothing tones. "Indeed, you are the only man I won't shoot. But if I aimed at anyone else, it might give others a dangerously mistaken sense of their own safety." I raised my voice a trifle, though it wasn't really necessary. "We will have another vote, Xorcheus."
They elected me Sounis. It was unanimous.”
― Megan Whalen Turner, quote from A Conspiracy of Kings
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