Nancy E. Turner Quotes & Sayings

How could I explain to a beautiful lady in a silk dress that when I picked up her baby girl, I felt that lady's long-ago chubby shape in my arms, smelled her sunshine-touched hair? That years and years of tiny memories flitted past my heart like a flock of birds spinning on invisible air? It was the smell of the little girls, slightly wet, somewhat soapy, the smell of porridge supper, and the taste of kissed-away tears. Here in my arms were the best parts of life, going on, blooming like a strong tree. — Nancy E. Turner

Mama said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different before, I don't remember. — Nancy E. Turner

I am my own tapestry, then, made as I could for myself. Some holes in my fabric have been made by others, some torn by chance. Missing threads in the weave represent all those I have loved who died so long before me — Nancy E. Turner

A clock only turns one direction — Nancy E. Turner

Sometimes I feel like a tree on a hill, at the place where all the wind blows and the hail hits the tree the hardest. All the people I love are down the side aways, sheltered under a great rock, and I am out of the fold, standing alone in the sun and the snow. I feel like I am not part of the rest somehow, although they welcome me and are kind. I see my family as they sit together and it is like theyh ave a certain way between them that is beyond me. I wonder if other folks ever feel included yet alone. — Nancy E. Turner

A move is a way of lightening your load and starting things new. — Nancy E. Turner

It seems to me that any time there are men making a war, somewhere there are women and children at home waiting and worrying. — Nancy E. Turner

To my room. Sheriff John Moultrie blew through his teeth and pursed lips, making a sound more akin to a steaming teapot than a whistle. The tune was "On the Road to Alabam'," a melody he'd picked up from watching gangs of gandy dancers as a child; he'd forgotten the words, but the ditty remained part of his grain. — Nancy E. Turner

Living is getting knocked down time and again, then standing up time and again, and once more. It's easy to act honorable when things are coming along and all your pastures are green. Plenty difficult when the ground is dried and burned and people have connived to take even that from you. I'll sell this place, or I'll lose it. I'll go on. People who don't have hard times aren't living. — Nancy E. Turner

Our axles don't match but our wheels are turning. — Nancy E. Turner

I have named the star Jack's Star. It is beautiful and bright and gives me joy when it is here and pain when it is not, and every year as Summer approaches I have seen it coming over the hills. I used to think that someday i will learn what educated people have called it and why it is only here sometimes, but now i think it wouldn't matter. It is Jack's Star, and they only have to ask and I will tell them it's name. They will have to ask the star itself where it goes and why it is not content to stay. — Nancy E. Turner

Udell was an ordinary man, I thought, but a man with an extraordinary way of thinking. That was truly worth more than gold: extraordinary thinking. — Nancy E. Turner

Reckon women don't think like men." "Why on earth don't they learn how?" I rubbed my face. "Ain't meant to, honey." I smiled and kissed his brow. "It occurs to us to ask the same thing. Keeps the world turning, I suspect. — Nancy E. Turner

That woman grinds my grits, and that's a fact. — Nancy E. Turner

[Children] just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them, as children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives. — Nancy E. Turner

One thing I know from living with Jack is that war, any war, stains a man deep, and nothing can get the stain out. They can wear clothes like a rancher or a banker, but the stains are under there, never far from the surface of their skin. — Nancy E. Turner

I realized that poverty was a kind of captivity. — Nancy E. Turner

Low down dirty ornery rotten skunk of a cussed mule-headed soldier! What's he want with my book anyway? And what kind of a way is that to write a congratulations? I am so mad I could walk clear to that fort and take him on single handed. — Nancy E. Turner

I used to complain to myself that life was so boring, that there was too much laundry to do, too many noses to wipe. Now there are not enough noses to wipe. — Nancy E. Turner

Well, there is rough old Albert, as ornery as any big brother a girl could have, putting his arm around Savannah and cooing to her like a repenting hound dog, and promising her she is not common nor shameful. I watched all this and thought you just never know sometimes what's in a man's heart. When you think he is all tough nails and boards he can be different on the inside. It makes me wonder about other men I know, too. — Nancy E. Turner

My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop to read it. — Nancy E. Turner

Was he he handsome?" she asked with a sly smirk.
"Very. He is still, I think."
"The devil, they say, goes about in finery."
"And if you believe Beelzebub is as cunning as he is attractive, then I think we have found him. — Nancy E. Turner

The best cure for sadness is doing something. — Nancy E. Turner

And he likes to torment me, and laughs when I get upset when he does. No, of course not. I do not love Jack Elliot. He is low and coarse and a soldier, and not the kind of man I want to spend my life with. — Nancy E. Turner

A lad who wears his every thought upon his face is asking for someone to change his opinions. — Nancy E. Turner

I asked Mama was it a sin to do what I done, and she said no, it was the same as David slaying Goliath, it was only to save Ulyssa and the others, not because of meanness that I did it. I would do it again, too. I am not sorry, but this has hurt my heart and spirit more than all the other trials, for being forsaken is worse than being killed. — Nancy E. Turner

Why should being quiet mean you're in love?
Because, she said. That means you aren't nervous with each other, or affected, or likely to be hiding intentions behind too much conversation. A friendly silence can speak between two who will walk together a long way, she said. — Nancy E. Turner

We are a noisy and blessed little family — Nancy E. Turner

We'll I'd like to see the woman that wouldn't defend her kin any way possible, and see what she's made of. Anyone who hasn't got some backbone has no business trying to live in the Territories. — Nancy E. Turner

My biggest Buff Orpinton rooster is on the small corral fence letting the world know he is in charge, all puffed up and sassy. There is nothing more silly than a rooster taking over the world, but every day he things he can. I wonder if we are just a little part of the world, like that rooster, and that the real things go on around us while we strut in our own yards trying to take charge of things. — Nancy E. Turner

At times, it's better to think of exactly what is happening right in front of you every second, rather than going through things from the past in your mind. — Nancy E. Turner

I told Mama and Savannah about Ruben's proposal. That got us to talking about marriage and we laughed and cried some, and missed Papa, and it felt good to belong to each other. I don't feel as lonely today as I have in months. At least I know there are other women around me. — Nancy E. Turner

I wondered someday if the devil might wake up and see he got the wrong girl, what will happen then? — Nancy E. Turner

Blue Horse said to me ... wisdom is not a path, it is a tree. — Nancy E. Turner

I never miss Meeting now," I said. "Do not look surprised. I have sent many a prayer heavenward on your behalf. And your father is not home yet. Your uncle sails under more danger of his own making. There is more to living in a town than I knew when you were young. Things have happened. It is important to go and to give to the poor and to keep in good graces with all who know us."
"But you always said to trust your own heart."
"That is true, son. I do not do this for trickery but to make myself known. If people have your acquaintance and friendship, they are not so quick to believe falsity. — Nancy E. Turner

A nice girl should never go anywhere without a loaded gun and a big knife." ~ Sarah Agnes Prine — Nancy E. Turner

Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weight hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank,and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it. — Nancy E. Turner

Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place — Nancy E. Turner

I declare, it is like some other part of me made up some rules about happiness and I just went along with them without thinking. My heart is lightened so much that I am amazed at how sad I felt for so long. — Nancy E. Turner

You cannot apologize for my feelings. You may apologize for your actions — Nancy E. Turner

Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I've been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I'll never reach — Nancy E. Turner

Home at last, and my little ranch house looks mighty plain, but it is home to me and I am glad to see it. — Nancy E. Turner

Oh Papa. I always felt like I had a hold on things when there was Papa to turn to. — Nancy E. Turner

We named her Dorothy Ann. Dolly, for short. I kissed her warily, fearful of the pain of loving her, love her, though love her I did; fearful lest she hurt me by dying. — Nancy E. Turner

A woman is a fool that lives from penny to farthing and n'er looks to the possibility of loss. — Nancy E. Turner

I must think about something else for a while. But then I remember his warn arms and his big strong legs touching mine and how hard and wide his chest was and how hot his kiss was, and I got outside and feed the chickens. They are getting mighty fat. — Nancy E. Turner

I can see being angry with folks. Shoot, I'd about hang Chess on the laundry line any day of the week, but I don't shun him. Shunning's no way to get over and done with your fussing. It just drives in a sword that won't come out unless the person holding it pulls first. — Nancy E. Turner

Don't leave me, Jack, I said.
Not ever, he whispered back. — Nancy E. Turner

How is it possible for me to feel so young and so old at the same time? — Nancy E. Turner

I have a deep-down belief that there are folks in the world who are good through and through, and others who came in mean and will go out mean. It's like coffee. Once it's roasted, it all looks brown. Until you pour hot water on it and see what comes out. Folks get into hot water, you see what comes out. — Nancy E. Turner

Life is short and must be lived. — Nancy E. Turner

We move on like stone statues. I feel like my legs are made of wooden branches and my heart is a hard rock inside. For days I do not even tie up my hair and it flows around me like an Indian's. I can't find my bonnet and my traveling clothes are ragged and so is my soul. — Nancy E. Turner

Some people sense is wasted on and that's purely a fact. — Nancy E. Turner

I am very thankful that man took one look at me showing with a baby coming along, with my hair falling down, and the broom lying at a mound of broken glass, and supper boiling over on the stove, April wearing a dirty pinafore screaming for me to hold her, and just then the baby in my arms spit up all over me, and he said, You know ... I'd be kindly obliged if you'd let me have supper some other time. — Nancy E. Turner

Sarah, he says, it isn't like I'm some old codger you have to coddle. Well, I told him, I want you healthy, to be sure that someday you are. — Nancy E. Turner

I rode toward Rudolfo Maldonado's house, planning to murder him before he got his morning shave. — Nancy E. Turner

We attended church Sunday as a family, and it was an even balance as to who was harder to keep still, the four Elliot children or Captain Elliot himself. Jack kept up a stream of secretive winks at me in a most suggestive fashion, which made me blush despite the fact that I desperately tried to maintain my composure. Two year old Suzanne squirmed in my lap but was still for him, so he bounced her quietly on his knee. The boys, true to their deeply spiritual natures, snored softly through the entire sermon, and April sat still but looked out the windows, bored and restlessly shifting in her seat.
(pg 326) — Nancy E. Turner

Every season has its beauty. — Nancy E. Turner

He plunges into the middle of them and it is a frightening thing. He must be fierce and wicked and brave all at the same time. I'm glad he's on our side. — Nancy E. Turner

I read more of Treasure Island to him, and it pleased him a great deal. It seems to me that there are so many lonely people in this world, and so little of life is kind and good. In a way, I am thankful for this flood, since without it, I might never have talked to him much, and Mason is a nice fellow. — Nancy E. Turner

I think my Mama and Savannah must be special people in the Lord's eyes, as they have gone about doing generous and loving things without even a second thought. For me, it seems like the only thing that comes natural is aggravation and hard word — Nancy E. Turner

I said, Well, looks like he's pretty ornery. I wonder where he gets it?
Jack just shrugged and kissed my cheek, and then whispered in my ear, He gets it from his mother. — Nancy E. Turner

Hard work is still peace compared to what can worry a person on the inside. — Nancy E. Turner

I am not sorry, but this has hurt my heart and spirit more than all the other trials, for being forsaken is worse than being killed. (Sept 5, 1881) — Nancy E. Turner

How fragile our lives are anyway. How quickly things can change forever. — Nancy E. Turner

What a pure blessing it was to have a bath in a tub alone in a room where all you had to do was pump the water, not tote buckets. Then all you had to do was pull out the cork, not tote more buckets to the back porch
that kind of thing is easy to take lightly until you don't have it. — Nancy E. Turner

But Jack, you're just a Captain and I'm the General. I order you not to go.
He tried to smile, ... These orders, he whispered, come from the Commander in Chief. — Nancy E. Turner

One thing I'd learned from all the burying I'd attended was that sometimes it's hard to pay attention. Burying someone you know will set your mind down some distant trail, as the one you're really on is too painful to view.
at the burial of Ernest, Sarah's brother
p177 — Nancy E. Turner

Mrs. Faulkner had sidled up to me and said Good day, Mrs. Elliot?
I just looked at her, and I saw in her eyes that she was wanting some kind of approval for her boy because of his career ahead, and she suddenly just looked like an old lady, not fancy and rich and frightening. An old lady whose son admired my husband, and who herself would be as helpless in the Territories as a newborn calf and not nearly as useful. Good day, I said back. It is a funny thing how much more proud people can be of themselves if they never step back and take a good look in a glass. — Nancy E. Turner

It seems as if I can only thing if I write my journal, it just connects the part of my head that is busy doing things with the part that is busy thinking about everything else. I know all these pepole are so busy because they love each other and me. We are a noisy crowd of love — Nancy E. Turner

Never forget, either of you, that there is always something greater than yourselves at work in the world. Look for it. Seek the whole truth, rather than letting the wind blow you as it will. — Nancy E. Turner

I would tear them apart with my bare hands to save my baby April. I wonder if all mothers feel this way. Suddenly I knew why it is so dangerous to mess with a bear with cubs or any wild animal with babies. I am part and parcel with them when it comes to that. Lord, there is a mountain lion side of me I never knew before. — Nancy E. Turner

In my head I remember that day the Indian man came and hollered at our camp and hadn't hurt anyone yet and I think that he was trying to say something, but no one will lift their eyes when I speak so I don't say anything. — Nancy E. Turner

It's easy to act honorable when things are coming along and all your pastures are green.Sarah Agnes Prine — Nancy E. Turner

But there is no easy way to mourn a child. — Nancy E. Turner

I might like to have someone courting me. But it would have to be someone who is a square shooter and who has a train load of courage. And it would have to be someone who doesn't have to talk down to folks to feel good, or to tell a person they are worthless ifthey just made a mistake. And he'd have to be not too thin. Why, I remember hugging [my brother] Ernest was like warpping your arms around a fence post,and I love Ernest, but I want a man who can hold me down in a wind. Maybe he'd have to be pretty stubborn. I don't have any use for a man that isn't stubborn. Likely a stubborn fellow will stay with you through thick and thin, and a spineless one will take off, or let his heart wander. — Nancy E. Turner

No wonder Mama went away in her head when Clover passed on. And then Papa. I am going to visit my Mama tomorrow and tell her I am sorry for everything I ever did that caused her sorrow or worry, and for ever wishing, during those days, that she would come back. She probably wanted to stay there. It's a wonder she came back at all. If I knew how to make myself go away in my head, I declare I would. — Nancy E. Turner

It is a hard thing to let your children near danger, and yet, I remember my Papa teaching me to fire a rifle before I could even hold it with my own strength. And if he hadn't trusted me to be careful, I would have never had faith in myself to do it. — Nancy E. Turner

Goats are naught but bones and bleating, and their hair was not warm nor their bodies soft. Of course, there was the smell, too, bitter as overripe vinegar, intrusive as bile. — Nancy E. Turner

One thing I know, whispered Savannah, is that if he was quiet, and you were quiet, and neither of you minded it, then you are in love. — Nancy E. Turner

I thought I was leading them, but the truth was, I was just following them, holding up a lantern. — Nancy E. Turner

Education doesn't keep a person from being a fool, and the lack of it doesn't keep a person from being intelligent. — Nancy E. Turner

Well, he perked right up and said, Five hundred dollars? Mrs. Elliot, I believe we can be of service to you after all.
I doubt it, I told him. I made this money with the sweat of my brow and the labor of my hands and I've got the rawhide to prove it. I don't inted to leave it with any man that thinks money is confusing. — Nancy E. Turner

I have been sad almost a whole year, thinking that taking that test was somehow the end of my learning and that not having that as a possibility in my future left a big empty spot in my life that the children and the ranch didn't fill. But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone. — Nancy E. Turner

I dream of land, cut only where streams glistened with birdsong wander through quiet hills burnt hard by the scrape of wind, and of a porch from which a single road leads only homeward. — Nancy E. Turner

A woman who dreams of a good home with a man who holds for her only a poor love is putting a $50 saddle on a $20 horse. She'd be far better off single than riding with him. — Nancy E. Turner

The best thing a girl can be is a good wife and mother. It is a girl's highest calling. I hope I am ready. — Nancy E. Turner

It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken. It isn't like I'd want to not have my little ones and Jack and that ranch, it is part of life to have to support yourself. It's just that I want everything, my insides are not just hungry, but greedy. I want to find out all the things in the world and still have a family and a ranch. Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I've been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I'll never reach. (November 29, 1887 entry, pg 309) — Nancy E. Turner

Want to wear scarlet velvet and slippers and lace gloves and ride in a stage instead of wearing calluses on my hands driving a team like a man. It is not her fault. She is right. The Lord looks on the inside, although people look on the outside. That man is measuring cloth — Nancy E. Turner

I wish the Lord would just knock me over with kindness and goodness and simple purity, because I don't seem to be getting the knack of it on my own. — Nancy E. Turner

That man makes me feel like I have my bonnet on backwards. — Nancy E. Turner

We have talked about Suzy and about her last days, but it's as if our lives stopped then and there. If I say anything to him about feeling lonesome, he goes outside and does some little chore. I can't tell if he is secretly blaming me, or himself, or just too full of pain to talk. That was the one thing we could always do together. I wish for the old days. I wish for the struggling days and the days of Geronimo, and the days of birthing Charlie with no one but Jack to help me. How happy and in love we were then. I want to be in love again, but all I feel is darkness and shadows. Everything is changed and different — Nancy E. Turner

Getting out of bed is a good way to leave your troubles behind. — Nancy E. Turner

I make believe all my dear ones are not gone, just out of my line of sight beyond some curtain or cluster of people, or tree — Nancy E. Turner

I can hardly wait to read it all. But it seems I don't have three minutes to rub together. Some time soon I will take it on, maybe when Charlie is a few months older. — Nancy E. Turner

Anytime we worked a quilt, it was the thing to do to set out an empty chair. It was for the missing woman. The friend who might call, just as you'd sat to quilt, and who might bring a loaf of bread, lend a hand, do a square ...
There are times I miss the things I haven't done in my life. The things that Savannah is so good at doing, like taking up the empty chair. — Nancy E. Turner

It is not a lonely feeling, but just as I am always sad to close the cover on a book, I feel I have finished with this part of my life and will have to begin a new book. — Nancy E. Turner

It is strange to have this little girl who is my own flesh and blood and yet she seems so separate from me. — Nancy E. Turner

It is an awful thing to look on such sad circumstance and not be able to shed a tear. It is not because I do not feel for these folks, but maybe I feel too much. Part of me is glad, in a low down, mean way, that it is not Albert's or Mama's graves we are digging. Glad that it is some soldiers I don't know and neighbors and friends but not family. Lord, I must be the cussedest woman there is to think that. Finally, I felt so guilty for thinking those things that I cried. Then I began to feel the heartaches of our friends and neighbors and I cried for them, too, as we said prayers over each and every grave. — Nancy E. Turner

It's not fair, men get to go off and chase around the country and get medals for doing stupid things and women get to sit home and worry. — Nancy E. Turner