D.E. Stevenson Quotes & Sayings

It was curious that when we had been able to buy new clothes when we wanted we had never really appreciated them nor enjoyed them. You have to be in the position of needing things very badly indeed before you can appreciate possessing them. — D.E. Stevenson

There is something very appealing about a room which one occupied as a child; it brings back one's childhood more vividly than anything else I know. — D.E. Stevenson

You can't get anything worth having for nothing," Darnay declared, offering his guest a fill of tobacco from his pouch, "and faith is worth having - it's the only thing that can save us now, when the whole world has straws in its hair. Faith is worth working for." Bulloch considered this while he filled his pipe. "To — D.E. Stevenson

Because if you walk in a city you're jostled by hundreds of indifferent people with indifferent eyes that look at you as if you weren't there at all. You begin to feel you must be invisible. Hundreds and thousands of eyes, and not one pair really seeing you or caring who you are. I'd rather walk down Beilford High Street and know that everybody was saying, 'There goes the mad painter!' It's better to be mad than invisible." She — D.E. Stevenson

Some people travel all over the world and see nothing. They go about clad in a thick fog of their own making through which no impressions can penetrate. — D.E. Stevenson

There are very few people in the world with courage enough to admit that they do not care for music (dogs and children come into the same category) and so brand themselves forever as Philistines in the eyes of their friends. — D.E. Stevenson

There are adventures of the spirit and one can travel in books and interest oneself in people and affairs. One need never be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings. — D.E. Stevenson

Jerry took a large slice of wheaten bread, spread with golden butter, and bit into it with her small white teeth. It was a natural gesture - she was very hungry indeed - but to Sam, there was something symbolic about it. Jerry was like bread, he thought. She was like good wholesome wheaten bread, spread thick with honest farm butter; and the thought crossed his mind, that a man might eat bread forever and ever, and not tire of it, and it would never clog his palate like sweet cakes or pastries or chocolate eclairs. — D.E. Stevenson

What fools the public were! They were exactly like sheep ... thought Mr. Abbott sleepily ... following each other's lead, neglecting one book and buying another just because other people were buying it, although, for the life of you, you couldn't see what the one lacked and the other possessed. — D.E. Stevenson

I believe you're as silly as I am," said Mrs. Millard smiling rather sadly. "You're a sentimental young woman, I'm afraid. You mustn't be sentimental; it's a sure road to a broken heart. It's ever so much better to be tough and callous - and a little bit selfish." I thought of Helen - it was dreadful of me to think of Helen but I could not help it - Helen was like that: tough and callous and a little bit selfish and she sailed through life very comfortably. "What shall I do with — D.E. Stevenson

Now listen," said Daniel gravely. "Just you listen to me and I'll tell you something worth remembering. When we're young we make our beds and when we're older we have to lie on them. I'd make myself a comfortable bed if I were you - straight and tidy with the blankets well tucked in at the foot - then it'll not come adrift when you lie in it. If a bed's not properly made at the start the blankets'll maybe fall off in the night and you'll wake up shivering." He nodded to Duggie in a friendly manner and away he went with his dog bounding gracefully beside him. Duggie watched him until he disappeared. Daniel — D.E. Stevenson

Excepting Will," Mrs. Bulloch amended. "Such an affront to put upon ye, Thomas! Yon man'll not enjoy heaven if he gets there." "He'll — D.E. Stevenson

Caroline was slightly taken aback (shocked would be much too strong a word to describe her feelings). It was difficult to know what to say to Widgeon. The whole affair seemed so topsy turvy, so typical of the topsy turvy conditions of modern life. She had tried to help her country by Growing More Food, and all she had got for the trouble involved was more trouble. She had received countless forms to fill up; she had been visited by inspectors who seemed to think it was within their province to be rude to her, and who treated her as if she were trying to defraud the authorities of their just and lawful due, and she had been fined quite heavily for doing something she did not know was wrong. Somewhat naturally Caroline felt annoyed and the opportunity to break the law without any risk at all tempted her considerably. — D.E. Stevenson

Do you ever have days like that when nothing can go wrong? And then there are the days when can go right, Paula continued. When your hair won't lie down properly, and your stockings develop ladders at the worst possible moment, or your suspender breaks, and buttons fly off your gloves. When you say the wrong things to the wrong people, and spill coffee on your favorite frock, and break your reading glasses, and your cook asks for a raise - you know the kind of thing I mean, said Paula. — D.E. Stevenson

Some people's elegance was only skin-deep, scrape off a little bit of the veneer and you got the real wood - common — D.E. Stevenson

Shoulder the sky,'" said Nan smiling. "Do you know A. E. Housman's poems? I think it helps a lot to find that other people have troubles, and understand what it feels like to be unhappy. Poets seem to know a lot about unhappiness. Here's something that has helped me." She hesitated for a moment and then quoted the lines: "The troubles of our proud and angry dust Are from eternity, and shall not fail. Bear them we can, and if we can we must. Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale." "'Shoulder — D.E. Stevenson

It is curious but true that those who make a habit of saying unkind things are often the most easily hurt and offended when their victims retaliate. — D.E. Stevenson

Friends that you have known for a long time and love very dearly never seem to grow old. — D.E. Stevenson

Clocks need a man to keep them in proper subjection.) — D.E. Stevenson

The strangest thing in all man's travelling is that he should carry about with him incongruous memories. There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only who is foreign, and now and then, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth. — D.E. Stevenson

Lady Esmeralda's background was no less interesting than herself; it was a colourful picture of luxury and squalor. Armies of servants thronged the great houses; coaches rumbled up to the doors. Huge meals were eaten at tables laden with silver and lit by candles; there was drinking and gambling and duelling. Highwaymen frequented lonely roads and footpads lurked in the streets. Thieves were hanged and crowds gathered to see the grisly entertainment. The picture of life in those far-off days became so real and clear that I felt as if I had lived in them myself. It was almost as if I remembered them. Sometimes I returned to them in my dreams (which was not always enjoyable) and occasionally I found myself — D.E. Stevenson

That's what I was meaning. Ye've got to have freedom first. It's no use believing what other folks say; the only thing is for each man to fend for himself, Mr. Darnay. Each man standing on his own feet, finding his own path - " "Grand! — D.E. Stevenson

The Adventures of Dickson McCunn, Adam Bede, Eric or Little by Little, these and many others, old and new, good bad and indifferent were grist to Duggie's mill. He found a novel by Rhoda Broughton entitled Not Wisely But Too Well and read it all through. He read an abridged version of Robinson Crusoe, and Under Two Flags and Coral Island with equal concentration. He read Little Women and Wuthering Heights. Cheyney he found difficult, for the people seemed to speak an unfamiliar language, but he struggled on manfully all the same. Needless — D.E. Stevenson

Poverty is easy to bear if it is only temporary, easier still if it is an entirely voluntary burden. — D.E. Stevenson

She had always suffered from a curious fear of what was going to happen round the next corner. Even when life went smoothly and nothing occurred to justify her vague apprehensions, they did not altogether disperse. She had tried to face these fears and conquer them, but she could never do so entirely, she could only strain forward into the darkness of the future, expecting and fearing the unknown. She was brave in the face of dangers she could see, but she could not arm herself against shadows. These fears were her weakness. — D.E. Stevenson

Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent things, and opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer. — D.E. Stevenson

Books are people,' smiled Miss Marks. 'In every book worth reading, the author is there to meet you, to establish contact with you. He takes you into his confidence and reveals his thoughts to you. — D.E. Stevenson

In a new friend we start life anew, for we create a new edition of ourselves and so become,for the time being, a new creature. — D.E. Stevenson

Dreaming was easy. I could dream for hours - not thinking, not wondering, not conscious of the passing of time. I could dream at all times and in all places - and this place was made for dreams. I did not awake until Andrew's shadow fell across my knees. "Where are the sand-castles, Jane?" "They were castles in Spain," I replied, smiling up at him. "But the real reason I wanted to come to the sea was pearls. Pearls like sea-water and sunshine." He stooped over the pool and said, "Not real pearls, — D.E. Stevenson

To have all my dear ones together under one roof - that is all I ask of life ... — D.E. Stevenson

Most people, looking back at their childhood, see it as a misty country half-forgotten or only to be remembered through an evocative sound or scent, but some episodes of those short years remain clear and brightly coloured like a landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope. — D.E. Stevenson

If talent is a natural aptitude for creation with an outlook on life peculiar to oneself, then genius is to have an outlook on life, peculiar to oneself, which yet appeals to everybody. Talent is for oneself and a few others, but genius is universal. — D.E. Stevenson

Few of us have the necessary unselfishness to hear with gladness the talents of others extolled or to listen with patience to the successes of those whom we despise - Vivian — D.E. Stevenson

If strangers see you behaving like lunatics, it doesn't matter, because they don't know who you are. And if your friends see you behaving like lunatics, it doesn't matter, because they know who you are. — D.E. Stevenson