The Collected Stories

Then the light changed the water, until all about them the woods in the rising wind seemed to grow taller and blow inward together and suddenly turn dark. The rain struck heavily. A huge tail seemed to lash through the air and the river broke in a wound of silver.

But happiness, Albert knew, is something that appears to you suddenly, that is meant for you, a thing which you reach for and pick up and hide at your breast, a shiny thing that reminds you of something alive and leaping.

When somebody, no matter who, gives everything, it makes people feel ashamed for him.

Welcome!" I said—the most dangerous word in the world.

It was in a place where the days would go by and surprise anyone that they were over.

When they turned off, it was still early in the pink and green fields. The fumes of morning, sweet and bitter, sprang up where they walked. The insects ticked softly, their strength in reserve; butterflies chopped the air, going to the east, and the birds flew carelessly and sang by fits. They went down again and soon the smell of the river spread over the woods, cool and secret. Every step they took among the great walls of vines and among the passion-flowers started up a little life, a little flight. 'We’re walking along in the changing-time,' said Doc. 'Any day now the change will come. It’s going to turn from hot to cold, and we can kill the hog that’s ripe and have fresh meat to eat. Come one of these nights and we can wander down here and tree a nice possum. Old Jack Frost will be pinching things up. Old Mr. Winter will be standing in the door. Hickory tree there will be yellow. Sweet-gum red, hickory yellow, dogwood red, sycamore yellow.' He went along rapping the tree trunks with his knuckle. 'Magnolia and live-oak never die. Remember that. Persimmons will all get fit to eat, and the nuts will be dropping like rain all through the woods here. And run, little quail, run, for we’ll be after you too.' They went on and suddenly the woods opened upon light, and they had reached the river. Everyone stopped, but Doc talked on ahead as though nothing had happened. 'Only today,' he said, 'today, in October sun, it’s all gold—sky and tree and water. Everything just before it changes looks to be made of gold.' ("The Wide Net")

For he was not strong enough to receive the impact of unfamiliar things without a little talk to break their fall.

And who could ever remember any of the things he says? They are just inspired remarks that roll out of his mouth like smoke.

In the end, it takes phenomenal neatness of housekeeping to put it through the heads of men that they are swine.

Was now the time to look forward to the doom of parting, and stop looking back at the doom of meeting?

He looked home-made, as though his wife had self-consciously knitted or somehow contrived a husband when she sat alone at night.

In a shadowy place something white flew up. It was a heron, and it went away over the dark treetops. William Wallace followed it with his eyes and Brucie clapped his hands, but Virgil gave a sigh, as if he knew that when you go looking for what is lost, everything is a sign. ("The Wide Net")

They all stood unwilling on the sandbar, holding to the net. In the eastern sky were the familiar castles and the round towers to which they were used, gray, pink, and blue, growing darker and filling with thunder. Lightning flickered in the sun along their thick walls. But in the west the sun shone with such a violence that in an illumination like a long-prolonged glare of lightning the heavens looked black and white; all color left the world, the goldenness of everything was like a memory, and only heat, a kind of glamor and oppression, lay on their heads. The thick heavy trees on the other side of the river were brushed with mile-long streaks of silver, and a wind touched each man on the forehead. At the same time there was a long roll of thunder that began behind them, came up and down mountains and valleys of air, passed over their heads, and left them listening still. With a small, near noise a mockingbird followed it, the little white bars of its body flashing over the willow trees. 'We are here for a storm now,' Virgil said. 'We will have to stay till it’s over.' ("The Wide Net")

A little girl lay flung back in her mother’s lap as though sleep had struck her with a blow.

I have been told, both in approval and in accusation, that I seem to love all my characters.

by the essence of their nature, which was frail, all human beings were probably doomed to be seasick.

Well, honey, what Mrs. Pike liked was the pygmies. They’ve got these pygmies down there, too, an’ Mrs. Pike was just wild about ’em. You know, the teeniniest men in the universe? Well, honey, they can just rest back on their little bohunkus an’ roll around an’ you can’t hardly tell if they’re sittin’ or standin’. That’ll give you some idea. They’re about forty-two years old. Just suppose it was your husband!' ("Petrified Man")

He did not like illness, he distrusted it, as he distrusted the road without signposts. ("Death Of A Traveling Salesman")

And it was so still. The silence of the fields seemed to enter and move familiarly through the house. The wind used the open hall. He felt that he was in a mysterious, quiet, cool danger. It was necessary to do what?...to talk. ("Death Of A Traveling Salesman")

It was late afternoon. This time tomorrow he would be somewhere on a good graveled road, driving his car past things that happened to people, quicker than their happening. ("Death of a Traveling Salesman")

The thing that seemed like silence must have been the endless cry of all the crickets and locusts in the world, rising and falling. ("The Wide Net")

But at the next flare a big tree on the hill seemed to turn into fire before their eyes, every branch, twig, and leaf, and a purple cloud hung over it. 'Did you hear that crack?' asked Robbie Bell. 'That were its bones.' 'Why do you little niggers talk so much!' said Doc. 'Nobody’s profiting by this information.' 'We always talks this much,' said Sam, 'but now everybody so quiet, they hears us.' ("The Wide Net")

When he got to his own house, William Wallace saw to his surprise that it had not rained at all. But there, curved over the roof, was something he had never seen before as long as he could remember, a rainbow at night. In the light of the moon, which had risen again, it looked small and of gauzy material, like a lady’s summer dress, a faint veil through which the stars showed. ("A Wide Net")

Surely even those immune from the world, for the time being, need the touch of one another, or all is lost.

What I do in writing of any character is to try to enter into the mind, heart, and skin of a human being who is not myself. Whether this happens to be a man or a woman, old or young, with skin black or white, the primary challenge lies in making the jump itself. It is the act of a writer’s imagination that I set most high.