Laura E. Richards Quotes & Sayings

To thousands of elder women in the late sixties and early seventies [the private women's club movement] came like a new gospel ofactivity and service. They had reared their children and seen them take flight; moreover, they had fought through the war, their hearts in the field, their fingers plying needle and thread. They had been active in committees and commissions, the country over; had learned to work with and beside men, finding joy and companionship and inspiration in such work. How could they go back to the chimney-corner life of the fifties? — Laura E. Richards

I would rather read poetry than eat my dinner any day. It has been so all my life. — Laura E. Richards

Once there was an elephant Who tried to use the telephant. No! no! I mean an elephone Who tried to use the telephone. Dear me, I am not certain quite That even now I've got it right. — Laura E. Richards

We know our neighbors - so far as we have the right to know them. We hear of their joys and their sorrows, and hasten to make them ours so far as we may. Life in a small town is like a layer cake. One gets the whole of it, frosted top, lemon filling and all. — Laura E. Richards

I eat till, honest, I felt every button on all my clo'es. The folks where we were stayin' were the old-fashioned hospitable kind; they didn't let you off till your jaws struck work and wouldn't wag no more. — Laura E. Richards

Read the Bible to the children, until they are old enough to read for themselves ... The Bible, not nursery versions of it. There is a Bible in words of one syllable; I am happy to say I have never seen it. Such a monstrosity should be put alongside of the Rhyming Bible, of which, I believe, only one copy is in existence. — Laura E. Richards

You couldn't find nobody deader, not if you'd sarched for a week. Why, door nails, and Julius Caesar, and things o' that description, would ha' been lively compared with your poor ma when I see her. Lively! that's what they'd ha' been. — Laura E. Richards

I do not believe in confining children to things they understand. They want, and they need, the thing they do not understand. — Laura E. Richards

Give the child good books, then let it alone! Don't plough and harrow its brain, or stretch it on Procrustes-beds of standardization, simplification, and what not! — Laura E. Richards