The Yearling
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
Top 10 Best Quotes
“Now he understood. This was death. Death was a silence that gave back no answer.”
“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”
“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.”
“He was addled with April. He was dizzy with Spring. He was as drunk as Lem Forrester on a Saturday night.”
“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.”
“The wild animals seemed less predatory to him than people he had known.”
“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.”
“You kin tame arything, son, excusin’ the human tongue.”
“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.”
“He would be lonely all his life. But a man took it for his share and went on.”
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Book Keywords:
manhood, sunset, sunrise, moving-forward, moving-forward-in-life, loneliness
