The Blythes Are Quoted

we lost our son, Anne, as did many others, but we have our memories of him and souls cannot die. We can still walk with Walter in the spring.

Oh, what would the world be without youth? And yet it passes so quickly. We are old before we know it. We never believe it ... and then some day we wake up and discover we are old.

You’ve been crying, Aunt Edith,” said a troubled Timothy. He got up out of his chair and hugged her. “Just you wait till I grow up and when I’m a man nothing’ll ever make you cry.

MY HOUSE I have built me a house at the end of the street Where the tall fir trees stand in a row, With a garden beside it where, purple and gold, The pansies and daffodils grow: It has dear little windows, a wide, friendly door Looking down the long road from the hill, Whence the light can shine out through the blue summer dusk And the winter nights, windy and chill To beckon a welcome for all who may roam ... ‘Tis a darling wee house but it’s not yet a home. It wants moonlight about it all silver and dim, It wants mist and a cloak of grey rain, It wants dew of the twilight and wind of the dawn And the magic of frost on its pane: It wants a small dog with a bark and a tail, It wants kittens to frolic and purr, It wants saucy red robins to whistle and call At dusk from the tassels of fir: It wants storm and sunshine as day follows day, And people to love it in work and in play. It wants faces like flowers at the windows and doors, It wants secrets and follies and fun, It wants love by the hearthstone and friends by the gate, And good sleep when the long day is done: It wants laughter and joy, it wants gay trills of song On the stairs, in the hall, everywhere, It wants wooings and weddings and funerals and births, It wants tears, it wants sorrow and prayer, Content with itself as the years go and come ... Oh, it needs many things for a house to be home! Walter Blythe

If he had seen the futility of the sacrifice they made then mirrored in this ghastly holocaust...

No one is old in spring.

You have to work in a garden yourself or you miss its meaning.

The years are still mad and glad in May ... it is only we who have changed.

Jill, like Nan, was at the stage when she adored villains. There was no surer passport to her favour than to look as if you were the wreck of a misspent life. 'Or a remorseful pirate,' Nan had said. 'It would be better still for him to be an unremorseful one,' said Diana. Jill felt that she would die for an unremorseful pirate.

Who was it said, ‘We forget because we must’? He was right.

It’s queer we can never do anything we really want to in this world for fear of what people will say!

When I say a clever thing to people they look startled and uncomfortable. I should just like to be quiet for years and years ... and not have to go on pretending to be bright and happy and quite, quite satisfied.

Well, we have to take what’s handed out to us in this world, parents and children alike.

Is anyone really happy in this mad world?

Nowadays you’ve got to stalk your man.

Loneliness is a terrible thing for anyone and most of all when you are only eight and nobody likes you.

Sometimes you laughed just because you felt like laughing. Sometimes because other people laughed and you felt you ought to join in.

You may tire of reality ... but you never tire of dreams[.]

There were times it made one happy to be a fool. It made you feel that you were driving straight back into the past.

Talk was a commonplace that did not belong to this enchanted time and place. A big moon was rising over the Cove. The wind rustled in the dune grasses and the waves washed softly on the shore.

It seemed that mere children were in love with each other nowadays.

It is so long since I have had a chance to live a day. You know we don’t live at Ashburn ... we just exist.

You can always read a man’s character by his eyes.

She wore a silvery dress and looked like a mermaid just slipped out of the sea. She knew he thought her the loveliest thing in the world. This is one of the things a woman knows without being told.

Nothing has been the same since the war, Gilbert. Nothing will ever be the same again.

Why is it that young people always like to write poetry about being old and tired?

As far as I can understand it, writing poetry is just putting into rhyme what everyone feels.

There are some things that are truer than facts[.]

Too clever and competent. That is why she has no patience with men.