Bess Streeter Aldrich Quotes

• Regardless of the popular literary trend of the times, write the thing which lies close to your heart.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Lying, Writing, Heart

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.9, U of Nebraska Press

  48 Copy quote

• It was true, she thought, that the big things awe us but the little things touch us.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Littles, Little Things, Bigs

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1988). “A White Bird Flying”, p.139, U of Nebraska Press

  10 Copy quote

• I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty . . . and maybe after that sorrow. You wouldn't think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes. . . . I think that is what love is to a woman . . . a lantern in her hand.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Motherhood, Love Is, Thinking

  6 Copy quote

• Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart...filled it, too, with melody that would last forever.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Christmas, Song, Xmas

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1985). “Journey Into Christmas and Other Stories”, p.207, U of Nebraska Press

  36 Copy quote

• Love is the light that you see by.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Love Is, Light

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.125, U of Nebraska Press

  12 Copy quote

• There is no division nor subtraction in the heart-arithmetic of a good mother. There are only addition and multiplication.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Mother, Heart, Division

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.82, U of Nebraska Press

  12 Copy quote

• It takes a small town to keep you humble.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Humble, Towns, Small Town

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1988). “A White Bird Flying”, p.146, U of Nebraska Press

  10 Copy quote

• They are the most painful tears in the world ... the tears of the aged ... for they come from dried beds where the emotions have long burned low.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Long, Tears, Age

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.293, U of Nebraska Press

  5 Copy quote

• You have to dream things out. It keeps a kind of an ideal before you. You see it first in your mind and then you set about to try and make it like the ideal. If you want a garden,-why, I guess you've got to dream a garden.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Dream, Garden, Mind

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.87, U of Nebraska Press

  8 Copy quote

• It is better to remember our love as it was in the springtime.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Love, Springtime, Remember

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1935). “Spring Came on Forever”, p.257, U of Nebraska Press

  4 Copy quote

• not all clever words are true. ... And inversely most things that are true are not clever.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Clever, Cleverness

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.255, U of Nebraska Press

  9 Copy quote

• Sometime in their lives, everybody wanted to go home.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Home, Wanted

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1950). “The Bess Streeter Aldrich reader”

  8 Copy quote

• A person may encircle the globe with mind open only to bodily comfort. Another may live his life on a sixty-foot lot and listen to the voices of the universe.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Voice, Feet, Mind

  11 Copy quote

• For though love has been ridiculed and disgraced, exchanged and bartered, dragged through the courts, and sold for thirty pieces of silver, the bright, steady glow of its fire still shines on the hearth-stones of countless homes.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Home, Fire, Shine On

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1988). “A White Bird Flying”, p.215, U of Nebraska Press

  4 Copy quote

• thoughts are acrobats, agile and quite often untrustworthy.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Untrustworthy

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1935). “Spring Came on Forever”, p.9, U of Nebraska Press

  6 Copy quote

• When I was young I had no means or time, and now I have the means and time, I have no youth.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Mean, Irony, Youth

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.241, U of Nebraska Press

  6 Copy quote

• Things last so much longer than people.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  People, Lasts

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1939). “Song of Years”

  4 Copy quote

• Some girls are apparently born with dates; some through much personal activity, achieve them; but others seem by necessity to have dates thrust upon them.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Girl, Dating, Achieve

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1988). “A White Bird Flying”, p.75, U of Nebraska Press

  7 Copy quote

• Biggest affirmative argument I know in favor of 'If a man die, shall he live again?' is just the way you feel inside you that nothin' can stop you from livin' on.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Men, Favors, Way

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1939). “Song of Years”

  6 Copy quote

• The greatest antidote in the world for grief is work, and the necessity of work.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Grief, World, Antidote

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1994). “A Lantern in Her Hand”, p.178, U of Nebraska Press

  5 Copy quote

• Katherine it was who took upon herself the complete charge of [Junior's] speech. Not an insignificant "have went" nor an infinitesimal "I seen" ever escaped the keen ears of his eldest sister, who immediately corrected him. Mother sometimes thought Katherine a little severe when, in the interest of proper speaking, she would stop him in the midst of an exciting account of a home-run. There were times, thought Mother, when the spirit of the thing was so much more important than the flesh in which it was clothed.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Mother, Running, Home

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1999). “The Collected Short Works, 1920-1954”, p.22, U of Nebraska Press

  4 Copy quote

• Junior was eleven. The statement is significant. There are a few peevish people in the world who believe that all eleven-year-old boys ought to be hung. Others, less irritable, think that gently chloroforming them would seem more humane. A great many good-natured folks contend that incarceration for a couple of years would prove the best way to dispose of them.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Couple, Believe, Boys

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1924). “Mother Mason”, p.34, U of Nebraska Press

  4 Copy quote

• Our souls may all be equal in the sight of the Lord, but our gumption and ingenuity ain't. So the results of man's labor will never be equal.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Equality, Men, Sight

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1939). “Song of Years”

  9 Copy quote

• In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler's dream.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Dream, Book, Rivers

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (0101). “Miss Bishop”, Prabhat Prakashan

  4 Copy quote

• Mrs. Schneiderman's theory of life was that earth held no sorrow that food could not heal.

  Bess Streeter Aldrich

  Food, Sorrow, Earth

  Bess Streeter Aldrich (1999). “The Collected Short Works, 1920-1954”, p.259, U of Nebraska Press

  5 Copy quote

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