“Now he understood. This was death. Death was a silence that gave back no answer.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“You've seed how things goes in the world o' men. You've knowed men to be low-down and mean. You've seed ol' Death at his tricks...Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'tain't easy. Life knocks a man down and he gits up and it knocks him down agin. I've been uneasy all my life...I've wanted life to be easy for you. Easier'n 'twas for me. A man's heart aches, seein' his young uns face the world. Knowin' they got to get their guts tore out, the way his was tore. I wanted to spare you, long as I could. I wanted you to frolic with your yearlin'. I knowed the lonesomeness he eased for you. But ever' man's lonesome. What's he to do then? What's he to do when he gits knocked down? Why, take it for his share and go on.
—Penny Baxter”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He lay down beside the fawn. He put one arm across its neck. It did not seem to him that he could ever be lonely again.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He was addled with April. He was dizzy with Spring. He was as drunk as Lem Forrester on a Saturday night.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“This, then, was hunger. This was what his mother had meant when she had said, "We'll all go hongry." He had laughed, for he had thought he had known hunger, and it was faintly pleasant. He knew now that it had been only appetite. This was another thing.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“You kin tame arything, son, excusin’ the human tongue.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“They listened with flattering attention. He was filled with enthusiasm. He began at the beginning and tried to tell it as he thought Penny would do. Half-way through, he looked down at the cake. He lost interest in the account.
"Then Pa shot him," he ended abruptly.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“The wild animals seemed less predatory to him than people he had known.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He watched the sun rise beyond the grape arbor. In the thin golden light the young leaves and tendrils of the Scuppernong were like Twink Weatherby's hair. He decided that sunrise and sunset both gave him a pleasantly sad feeling. The sunrise brought a wild, free sadness; the sunset, a lonely yet a comforting one. He indulged his agreeable melancholy until the earth under him turned from gray to lavender and then to the color dried corn husks.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Don't go gittin faintified on me.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He would be lonely all his life. But a man took it for his share and went on.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Eulalie in a remote fashion belonged to him, Jody, to do with as he pleased, if only to throw potatoes at her.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Jody said, "Ma, you're shore good."
"Oh, yes. When it's rations."
"Well, I'd a heap ruther you was good about rations and mean about other things."
"Oh, I be mean, be I?"
"Only about jest a very few things," he soothed her.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He wrote:
Dear ollever; yor ol twinkk has dun gode up the rivver. im gladd. yor friend jody.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“You do somethin' for me? Go tell Twink I'll meet her at the old grove Tuesday about dusk-dark."
Jody was frozen.
He burst out, "I won't do it. I hate her. Ol' yellow-headed somethin'.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“He lay down on his pallet and drew the fawn down beside him. He often lay so with it in the shed, or under the live oaks in the heat of the day. He lay with his head against its side. its ribs lifted and fell with its breathing. It rested its chin on his hand. It had a few short hairs there that prickled him. He had been cudgeling his wits for an excuse to bring the fawn inside at night to sleep with him, and now he had one that could not be disputed. He would smuggle it in and out as long as possible, in the name of peace.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“I'm eating' it quick... but I'll remember it a long time.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Well, son, you cain’t go thru life chunkin’ things at all the ugly women you meet.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Grandma Hutto’s flower garden was a bright patchwork quilt thrown down inside the pickets.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“She drew gallantry from men as the sun drew water. Her pertness enchanted them. Young men went away from her with a feeling of bravado. Old men were enslaved by her silver curls. Something about her was forever female and made all men virile.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Ma Baxter rocked complacently. They were all pleased whenever she made a joke. Her good nature made the same difference in the house as the hearth-fire had made in the chill of the evening.”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
“Ever' man wants life to be a fine thing, and a easy. 'Tis fine, boy, powerful fine, but 'taint easy.
--Penny Baxter to his son, Jody”
― Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, quote from The Yearling
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Born place: in Washington, DC, The United States
Born date August 8, 1896
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“We broke the world to make it whole...”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, quote from The Other Wind
“L'étude du beau est un duel où l'artiste crie de frayeur avant d'être vaincu.”
― Charles Baudelaire, quote from Paris Spleen
“Nations tend to see the other side's war atrocities as systemic and indicative of their culture and their own atrocities as justified or the acts of stressed combatants. In my travels, I sense a smoldering resentment towards WWII Japanese behavior among some Americans. Ironically, these feelings are strongest among the younger American generation that did not fight in WWII. In my experience, the Pacific vets on both sides have made their peace. And in terms of judgments, I will leave it to those who were there. As Ray Gallagher, who flew on both atomic missions against Hiroshima and Nagasaki argues, "When you're not at war you're a good second guesser. You had to live those years and walk that mile.”
― James D. Bradley, quote from Flyboys: A True Story of Courage
“In fact no one recognizes the happiest moment of their lives as they are living it. It may well be that, in a moment of joy, one might sincerely believe that they are living that golden instant "now," even having lived such a moment before, but whatever they say, in one part of their hearts they still believe in the certainty of a happier moment to come. Because how could anyone, and particularly anyone who is still young, carry on with the belief that everything could only get worse: If a person is happy enough to think he has reached the happiest moment of his life, he will be hopeful enough to believe his future will be just as beautiful, more so.”
― Orhan Pamuk, quote from The Museum of Innocence
“As I do not seem able much to heal, then maybe I can simply be a responsible witness to the miracle of the ordinary soul.”
― Sebastian Barry, quote from The Secret Scripture
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