Best 50 quotes of Jean Webster on MyQuotes

Jean Webster

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    Jean Webster

    And if I ever have any children of my own, no matter how unhappy I may be, I am not going to let them have any cares until they grow up.

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    Jean Webster

    Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh- I really think that requires spirit!

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    Jean Webster

    ‎Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail. Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.

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    Jean Webster

    Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, You never answered my question and it was very important. ARE YOU BALD?

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    Jean Webster

    Everybody likes a few surprises; it's a perfectly natural human craving.

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    Jean Webster

    Half of the time I don't know what they're talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language.

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    Jean Webster

    He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humour are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf! And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see it with me. But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.

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    Jean Webster

    Her mother was a Rutherford. The family came over in the ark, and were connected by marriage with Henry the VIII. On her father's side they date back further than Adam. On the topmost branches of her family tree there's a superior breed of monkeys with very fine silky hair and extra long tails.

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    Jean Webster

    I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen.

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    Jean Webster

    I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains.

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    Jean Webster

    I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.

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    Jean Webster

    I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

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    Jean Webster

    ... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now -- I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.

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    Jean Webster

    Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.

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    Jean Webster

    I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.

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    Jean Webster

    It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones.

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    Jean Webster

    It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit. It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.

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    Jean Webster

    It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.

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    Jean Webster

    it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!

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    Jean Webster

    It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity.

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    Jean Webster

    It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.

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    Jean Webster

    I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. ~Jershua Abbott

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    Jean Webster

    Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines. That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness.

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    Jean Webster

    One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes.

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    Jean Webster

    She never lets ideas interrupt the easy flow of her conversation.

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    Jean Webster

    She was by nature a sunny soul

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    Jean Webster

    The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.

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    Jean Webster

    This is your heart.Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key.

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    Jean Webster

    Behold me - a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave Lock Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensation to come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world - as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

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    Jean Webster

    Don't let politeness interelfere with truth

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    Jean Webster

    Don't let politeness interfere with truth

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    Jean Webster

    Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.

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    Jean Webster

    Eleven pages— this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop.

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    Jean Webster

    Estoy pasando por un cambio total de mi carácter. Odio la inestabilidad. Me asusta la idea de ver mi vida desorganizada.

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    Jean Webster

    Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!

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    Jean Webster

    He compuesto un poema a la victoria: ¡Quién lo hubiera creído! ¡El doctor MacRae ha sonreído! ¡Es verdad!

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    Jean Webster

    I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time with my heroine— I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you.

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    Jean Webster

    I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!

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    Jean Webster

    In the country, especially, there are such a lot of entertaining things. I can walk over everybody's land, and look at everybody's view, and dabble in everybody's brook; and enjoy it just as much as though I owned the land--and with no taxes to pay!

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    Jean Webster

    It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!

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    Jean Webster

    I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant...I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it.

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    Jean Webster

    I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be ever regretting past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant . It's like farming. You can have extensive farming and intensive farming; well, I am going to have intensive living after this. I'm going to joy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live, they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of happiness.

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    Jean Webster

    She was worshiping under the blue sky, to the jubilant chanting of the birds.

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    Jean Webster

    Sözünü ettiğim şey büyük keyifler değil; önemli olan küçük şeylerden büyük mutluluklar çıkartmak - mutluluğun sırrını keşfettim Dede ve bu şimdiyi yaşamak. Geçmiş yüzünden asla pişmanlık duymamak, geleceğe ilişkin beklentiler içinde olmamak, bunların yerine şu anda yaşanılan andan olabildiğince çok şey çıkartmak." Bir Gençlik Masalı (Daddy-Long-Legs #1)

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    Jean Webster

    The only explanation I can think of is that he is insane, and there are so many insane people in the world that it isn't even interesting.

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    Jean Webster

    We all have a collection of memories that we would happily lose, but somehow those are just the ones that insist upon sticking.

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    Jean Webster

    What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change every three days. "Wuthering Heights." Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. She had never known any men in her life; how could she imagine a man like Heathcliff? I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier Asylum - I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author?

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    Jean Webster

    Where do you think my new novel is? In the waste basket. I can see myself that it's no good on earth, and when a loving author realizes this, what would be the judgment of a critical public?

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    Jean Webster

    You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It make them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children.

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    Jean Webster

    You must remember that you cannot form your character in a moment, my dear. Character is a plant of slow growth and the seeds must be planted early.