Spoon River Anthology
Edgar Lee Masters
Top 10 Best Quotes
“To this generation I would say: Memorize some bit of verse of truth or beauty.”
“To put meaning in one's life may end in madness, But life without meaning is the torture Of restlessness and vague desire-- It is a boat longing for the sea and yet afraid.”
“The tongue may be an unruly member-- But silence poisons the soul.”
“In time you shall see Fate approach you In the shape of your own image in the mirror.”
“And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.”
“the much-sought prize of eternal youth Is just arrested growth.”
“Act well your part, there all the honor lies.”
“I tramped through the country To get the feeling That I was not a separate thing from the earth. I used to lose myself By lying with eyes half-open in the woods. Sometimes I talked with animals…”
“This is life's sorrow: That one can be happy only where two are; And that our hearts are drawn to stars Which want us not.”
“FIDDLER JONES The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, Why, fiddle you must, for all your life. What do you see, a harvest of clover? Or a meadow to walk through to the river? The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands For beeves hereafter ready for the market; Or else you hear the rustle of skirts. Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to Toor-a-Loor. How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a will-mill – only these? And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle – And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.”
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Book Keywords:
dorcas-gustine, memories, regret, laugh, fiddle, love, youth, fate, fiddler, jones, life, growing-up, immaturity, inspirational, maturity, single, spoon-river, honor, meaning































