Jean Webster Quotes & Sayings

The Lord has given you two hands and a brain and a big world to use them in. Use them well, and you will be provided for; use them ill, and you will want, — 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. — 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! — 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. — Jean Webster

If this book should ever roam, Box its ears and send it home. — Jean Webster

think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. — Jean Webster

But Julia hasn't a bit of tact; and men, I find, require a great deal. They purr if you rub them the right way and spit if you don't. (That isn't a very elegant metaphor. I mean it figuratively.) — Jean Webster

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

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

Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy. — Jean Webster

One does not miss what one has never had. — Jean Webster

Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew sober as the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hers no longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come to be the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end. — Jean Webster

Our lives were absolutely monotonous and uneventful. Nothing nice ever happened, except ice-cream on Sundays, and even that was regular. In all the eighteen years I was there I only had one adventure - when the woodshed burned. We had to get up in the night and dress so as to be ready in case the house should catch. But it didn't catch and we went back to bed.
Everybody likes a few surprises; it's a perfectly natural human craving. But I never had one until Mrs. Lippett called me to the office to tell me that Mr. John Smith was going to send me to college. And then she broke the news so gradually that it just barely shocked me. — Jean Webster

Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred. — Jean Webster

Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living. 'These — 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. — Jean Webster

I think that every one , no matter how many troubles the may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon. 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. — Jean Webster

The way people are forever rolling their eyes to heaven and saying: "Perhaps it's all for the best," when they are perfectly dead sure it's not, makes me enraged. Humility or resignation or whatever you choose to call it, is simply impotent inertia. I'm for a more militant religion! — Jean Webster

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

The room marked with a cross is not where the murder was committed, but the one that I occupy. — Jean Webster

It's nice to look forward to, isn't it - a life of work and play and little daily adventures side by side with somebody you love? — Jean Webster

But what's the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr. Smith, to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, there are just two methods: one must either coax or be disagreeable. I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must be disagreeable. — Jean Webster

The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it a success. — Jean Webster

See marriage as a man must, a good, sensible workaday institution; but awfully curbing to one's liberty. Somehow, after you're married forever, life has lost its feeling of adventure. There aren't any romantic possibilities waiting to surprise you around each corner. — Jean Webster

Julia and Sallie and I all had new dresses. Do you want to hear about them? Julia's was cream satin and gold embroidery and she wore purple orchids. It was a DREAM and came from Paris, and cost a million dollars. Sallie's — 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. — 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. — Jean Webster

You mustn't get me used to too many luxuries. One doesn't miss what one has never had; but it's awfully hard going without things after one has commenced thinking they are his. — Jean Webster

Most people don't live; they just race. — Jean Webster

I have been thinking about you a great deal this summer; having somebody take an interest in me after all these years makes me feel as though I had found a sort of family. It seems as though I belonged to somebody now, and it's a very comfortable sensation. — Jean Webster

Tis a thankless world — Jean Webster

Isn't it fun to work - or don't you ever do it? It's especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking. I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest book you ever saw - it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm limp all over. — Jean Webster

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

This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep.
I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia and Leonora Fenton - and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sallie stayed to help wash the dishes. — 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. — 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. — Jean Webster

The awful thing about a vacation is that the moment it begins your happiness is already clouded by its approaching end. — Jean Webster

You should see the way this college is studying! — Jean Webster

But you won't mind, will you, if I tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for another man? You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. I suspect that my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a very long time. I — Jean Webster

They are so accustomed to the feeling that their senses are deadened to it; — Jean Webster

It is funny how certain places get connected with certain people, and you never go back without thinking of them. — Jean Webster

when we women get our rights, you men will have to look alive in order to keep yours. — 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. — 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. — Jean Webster

I've read seventeen novels and bushels of poetry
really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverel and Alice in Wonderland. Also Emerson's Essays and Lockhart's Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbon's Roman Empire and half of Benvenuto Cellini's Life
wasn't he entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast. — Jean Webster

It makes me almost hope I'm not a genius; they must be very wearying to have about - and awfully destructive to the furniture. — Jean Webster

You remember that illuminated text over the dining-room door
"The Lord Will Provide." We've painted it out, and covered the spot with rabbits. It's all very well to teach so easy a belief to normal children, who have a proper family and roof behind them; but a person whose only refuge in distress will be a park bench must learn a more militant creed than that. — Jean Webster

This new book is going to get itself finished - and published! You see if it doesn't. — Jean Webster

You know that I've always had a very special feeling towards you; you — Jean Webster

It seemed like an unachievable goal for one person to bring sunshine to one hundred little faces when what they need is a mother apiece. — 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. — Jean Webster

Perhaps when two people are exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when apart, they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them. — 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. — Jean Webster

The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable; it is fun to plan a career, but in all probability I shan't turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person. — Jean Webster

Examinations are even entertaining, if you know the right answers. — Jean Webster

Aren't men funny? When they want to pay you the greatest compliment in their power, they naively tell you that you have a masculine mind. There is one compliment, incidentally, that I shall never be paying him. I cannot honestly say that he has a quickness of perception almost feminine. — Jean Webster

You know, Daddy, 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. It ought to be cultivated in children. — 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? — Jean Webster

I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me look like a Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott - Oh, my! — Jean Webster

You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in a class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar. — Jean Webster

Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor. — 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. — 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? — Jean Webster

I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. I was queer and different and everybody knew it. — Jean Webster

Dear Daddy, Do you observe the postmark? — Jean Webster

The Letters of Miss Jerusha Abbott to Mr. Daddy-Long-Legs Smith 215 — Jean Webster

so you must be as punctilious in sending them as though it were a bill that you were paying. I hope that they will always be respectful in tone and will reflect credit on your training. — 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. — Jean Webster

That is - you are not to thank him for the money; he doesn't care to have that mentioned, but you are to write a letter telling of the progress in your studies and the details of your daily life. — Jean Webster

I don't know why I am in such a reminiscent mood except that spring and the reappearance of toads always awakens the old acquisitive instinct. The only thing that keeps me from starting a collection is the fact that no rule exists against it. — Jean Webster

I don't believe it pays to be a great author. — Jean Webster

Where is the fun of living if you are going to make yourself a slave to all sorts of petty rules? asked Patty wearily. — Jean Webster

It's a relief not having to thank Somebody for every mouthful you eat. (I dare say I'm blasphemous; but you'd be, too, if you'd offered as much obligatory thanks as I have.) — 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. — Jean Webster

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

I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation. — 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. — Jean Webster

Please be thinking about me. I'm quite lonely and I want to be thought about — Jean Webster

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

I like to pretend that you belong to me, just to play with the idea, but of course I know you don't. I'm alone, really
with my back to the wall fighting the world
and I get sort of gaspy when I think about it. I put it out of my mind, and keep on pretending; but don't you see, Daddy? — Jean Webster

Getting an education is an awfully wearing process! — Jean Webster

It's the one touch of nature that makes the whole world kin. (That isn't original. I got it out of one of Shakespeare's plays). However, — Jean Webster

We belong to each other now really and truly, no make-believe. Doesn't it seem queer for me to belong to someone at last? It seems very, very sweet. And I shall never let you be sorry for a single instant.

Yours, for ever and ever,

Judy — Jean Webster

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

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

Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life- written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and forseeing to the exact hour the time you would die. How many people do you suppose you have the courage to read it then? Or how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope, without surprise? Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about so often. But imagine how deadly monotonous it would be if nothing unexpected could happen between meals? — Jean Webster

True it is that troubles niver come single, they're married an' has children. — Jean Webster

Good manners are not merely snobbish ornaments, as Mrs. Lippett's regime appeared to believe. They mean self-discipline and thought for others, and my children have got to learn them. — Jean Webster

Dear Judy: Your letter is here. I have read it twice, and with amazement. Do I understand that Jervis has given you, for a Christmas present, the making over of the John Grier Home into a model institution, and that you have chosen me to disburse the money? Me - I, Sallie McBride, the head of an orphan asylum! My poor people, have you lost your senses, or have you become addicted to the use of opium, and is the raving of two fevered imaginations? I am exactly as well fitted to take care of one hundred children as to become the curator of a zoo. — Jean Webster

He has gone and we are missing him ! When you get accustomed to people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, it does leave an empty, gnawing sort of sensation. — 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. — Jean Webster

I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue. Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story? — Jean Webster

She was by nature a sunny soul — 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. — Jean Webster

That is the way Connecticut goes, in a series of Marcelle waves; and Lock Willow Farm is just on the crest of one wave. The barns used to be across the road where they obstructed the view, but a kind flash of lightning came from heaven and burnt them down. — Jean Webster