The Country of the Pointed Firs
Sarah Orne Jewett
Top 10 Best Quotes
“In the life of each of us, I said to myself, there is a place remote and islanded, and given to endless regret or secret happiness; we are each the uncompanioned hermit and recluse of an hour or a day; we understand our fellows of the cell to whatever age of history they may belong.”
“I couldn't help thinkin' if she was as far out o' town as she was out o' tune, she wouldn't get back in a day.”
“It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance that knows what you know. I see so many of these new folks nowadays, that seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation's got to have some root in the past, or else you've got to explain every remark you make, an' it wears a person out.”
“When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.”
“A community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled paper.”
“There is all the pleasure that one can have in golddigging in finding one’s hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.”
“So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.”
“There's sometimes a good hearty tree growin' right out of the bare rock, out o' some crack that just holds the roots', she went on to say, 'right on the pitch o' one o' them bare stony hills where you can't seem to see a wheelbarrowful o' good earth in a place, but that tree'll keep a green top in the driest summer. You lay your ear down to the ground an' you'll hear a little stream runnin'. Every such tree has got its own livin' spring; there's folks made to match 'em.”
“I have come to know what it is to have patience, but I have lost my hope.”
“tain't so pleasant as when poor dear was here. Oh, I didn't want to lose her an' she didn't want to go, but it had to be. Such things ain't for us to say; there's no yes an' no to it.”
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Book Keywords:
conversation, silence, acceptance, singing, wicked-humor, wisdom, finished-work, simple-pleasures, narrow-mindedness, stages-of-life, patience, friendship, solitude, goodbyes, melancholy, maturity, community, gardening, old-friends, newspaper, sarcasm, changes-in-life, seclusion, bad-singing, hope, sadness, humor, potatoes, ignorance, waiting, end-of-summer
