Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Quotes

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Birds Books Cooking Earth Fighting Rain

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Love, Funny, Life

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2011). “The Yearling”, p.176, Simon and Schuster

60 Copy quote
It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. We are tenants, not possessors, lovers and not masters.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Earth, May, Lovers

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.329, Booklassic

27 Copy quote
I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Religion, Enchantment, Turns

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.34, Booklassic

27 Copy quote
Who owns Cross Creek? The red-birds, I think, more than I, for they will have their nests even in the face of delinquent mortgages..It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed, but not bought. It may be used, but not owned. It gives itself in response to love and tending, offers its sesonal flowering and fruiting. But we are tenants and not possessors, lovers, and not masters. Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time..."

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Rain, Thinking, Wind

33 Copy quote
We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Heart, Men, Earth

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.3, Booklassic

33 Copy quote
Fear is the most easily taught of all lessons, and the fight against terror, real or imagined, is perhaps the history of man's mind.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Fear, Real, Fighting

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.148, Booklassic

23 Copy quote
A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Men, Never Forget, Forget

26 Copy quote
Food imaginatively and lovingly prepared, and eaten in good company, warms the being with something more than the mere intake of calories. I cannot conceive of cooking for friends or family, under reasonable conditions, as being a chore.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Cooking, Good Company, Calories

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1996). “Cross Creek Cookery”, p.2, Simon and Schuster

13 Copy quote
Here in Florida the seasons move in and out like nuns in soft clothing, making no rustle in their passing.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Moving, Florida, Passing

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.217, Booklassic

5 Copy quote
Readers themselves, I think, contribute to a book. They add their own imaginations, and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on, and they did the rest.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Book, Reading, Thinking

20 Copy quote
I can only tell you that when long soul-searching and a combination of circumstances delivered me of my last prejudices, there was an exalted sense of liberation. It was not the Negro who became free, but I.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Long, Soul, Lasts

16 Copy quote
Magic birds were dancing in the mystic marsh. The grass swayed with them, and the shallow waters, and the earth fluttered under them. The earth was dancing with the cranes, and the low sun, and the wind and sky.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Wind, Sky, Dancing

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1985). “The Yearling”, p.88, Simon and Schuster

20 Copy quote
No man should have proprietary rights over land who does not use that land wisely and lovingly.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Men, Should Have, Land

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (1996). “Cross Creek”, p.379, Simon and Schuster

19 Copy quote
Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Rain, Wind, Sun

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.329, Booklassic

21 Copy quote
But to make the intangible tangible, to pick the emotion out of the air and make it true for others, is both the blessing and the curse of the writer, for the thing between book covers is never as beautiful as the thing he imagined.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Beautiful, Book, Blessing

9 Copy quote
Writing is agony for me. I work at it eight hours every day, hoping to get six pages, but I am satisfied with three.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Writing, Agony, Eight

14 Copy quote
Hemingway, damn his soul, makes everything he writes terrifically exciting (and incidentally makes all us second-raters seem positively adolescent) by the seemingly simple expedient of the iceberg principle - three-fourths of the substance under the surface. He comes closer that way to retaining the magic of the original, unexpressed idea or emotion, which is always more stirring than any words. But just try and do it!

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Writing, Simple, Ideas

21 Copy quote
It's very important to be just to other people. It takes years and years of living to learn that injustice against oneself is always unimportant.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Years, People, Justice

4 Copy quote
A man'll seem like a person to a woman, year in, year out. She'll put up and she'll put up. Then one day he'll do something maybe no worse than what he's been a-doing all his life. She'll look at him. And without no warning he'll look like a varmint.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Men, Years, One Day

15 Copy quote
When a wave of love takes over a human being... such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Secret, Pulse, Exaltation

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.326, Booklassic

53 Copy quote
Life is strong stuff, some of us can bear more of it than others.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Strong, Stuff, Bears

8 Copy quote
Two elements enter into successful and happy gatherings at table. The food, whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared; willingly prepared; imaginatively prepared. And the guests - friends, family or strangers - must be conscious of their welcome.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Successful, Simple, Two

11 Copy quote
Words began fights and words ended them.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Fighting, Conflict

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2011). “The Yearling”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

5 Copy quote
It is not death that kills us, but life. We are done to death by life.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

Life And Death, Done

4 Copy quote
Ants in the house seem to be, not intruders, but the owners.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

House, Ants, Owners

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (2015). “Cross Creek”, p.135, Booklassic

21 Copy quote

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Born: August 8, 1896
Died: December 14, 1953
Occupation: Author
Cite this Page: Citation

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