Bess Quotes & Sayings

Juliana behaved as if she was performing for an unknown, ever-present viewer — Gabby Bess

Oh, why couldn't they know? Why did an old woman seem always to have been old? Abbie was back on the knoll near the Big Woods, singing ... her head thrown back ... her thick hair curling and rippling over her creamy white shoulders. Why couldn't they understand that once she had kept tryst with Youth? Why didn't they realize that some day, they, too must hold rendezvous with Age? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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

Bess stepped back and looked at Nancy admiringly. 'Your hunches are so often right it startles me. — Carolyn Keene

I've lived through a lifetime of crises and survived. — Bess Myerson

Ella held herself rigidly against all emotion until she arrived at the dark haven of her room. Then she threw herself across her bed and cried because life was such a tragic thing. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

You've got to love people, places, ideas; you've got to live with mind, body, soul; you've got to be committed; there is no life on the side-lines. — Bess Myerson

In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler's dream. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

And so they discussed it seriously, Abbie who knew that one may laugh with a child but at him, and Laura, who knew that Grandma was one unfailing source of sympathy and understanding in a world which was beginning to be critical. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Yeah, see, and that proves my point. What killed Housini? A stupid accident. But for one moment of stupidity, he'd have grown old with his Bess and been happy as a big in shit. Notice I ain't young, and if I die, old Cletus would kick my ass for leaving him all alone down here. (Jack) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

Men go after me, and I choose among them. — Bess Myerson

Look at this existence. This pathetic, fallible, wonderful body," you can say rhetorically, sarcastically, or earnestly and still achieve death. Look at me falling in love with fallible bodies. Look at me performing emotional labor — Gabby Bess

The Light in the Labyrinth is a beautifully written book, a gem. I savoured every word; words written with so much 'colour'. Even though I know the story of Queen Anne Boleyn, Dunn's perspective on her last days is missing in so many other books of the genre. Dunn gives grace to the history and an honest, and very compassionate look at Anne's last days. I cried in the end, shedding tears for the young Kate, Anne and her little Bess. I have not yet read a Tudor book that has moved me to tears, as this wonderful journey does. Dunn's dedication and research shines through in this unforgettable book, a book not just for young readers, but also for all." - Lara Salzano, avid Tudor reader. — Wendy J. Dunn

Standing there in the soddie door, she seemed two personalities. One argued bitterly that it was impossible for love to keep going when there was no hope for the future, suggested that there was no use trying to keep it going. The other said sternly that marriage was not the fulfillment of a passion, - marriage was the fulfillment of love. And love was sometimes pleasure and sometimes duty. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

That was the trouble of being old. Your body no longer obeyed you. It did unruly and unreasonable things. An eye suddenly might not see for a moment. Your knees gave out at the wrong time, so that when you thought you were walking north, you might find yourself going a little northwest. Your brain, too, had that same flighty trick. You might be speaking of something and forget it temporarily, - your mind going off at a little to the northwest, too, so to speak. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

You cannot be beautiful and hate. — Bess Myerson

I'm much more conspicuous having long hair than I will be with it short. — Bess Truman

As she wrote her pulse quickened to the pleasure of forming the phrases,--her blood warmed to the joy of the working. She was experiencing a return of the familiar sensation of happiness in constructing. Quite suddenly, in fancy she caught in the far distance a glimpse of silver wings. It gave her a warm thrill of gratification too deep for words. Immediately she knew through some inner consciousness, that no matter what the future would hold--joy or sorrow, happiness or grief--that no matter where life's paths would lead her--through sharp and stony ways or beside still waters--buried deep within her was an indestructible capacity to visualize a white bird flying. She might never get close to the way of its winging, but always there would be joy in lifting her eyes to the glory of its distant flight. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

...Mabel put on the boiled potatos, unmashed, the stewed tomatos, some inferior dried beef, and some bread that plainly said, 'Darling, I am growing old'. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I don't look upon my divorces as mistakes. Those marriages were right for the Bess that made that decision at that time. — Bess Myerson

[When her daughter suggested the President refer in his conversation with foreign dignitaries about lawn care to 'fertilizer' instead of to 'manure':] But remember, it took me almost thirty years to get him to call it manure. — Bess Truman

I would advise all professional athletes to get involved and to try to help make a difference.We can make a huge impact. We can be that difference maker just because of our status and because of what we do. If we don't, who else will? — Davone Bess

Bess and I had a talk. January 1919. Everything flowed from that talk, that moment. Everything. Look back on your life and see if you can pinpoint the moment when everything changed. If you can't? That means you haven't had your momemt yet, and you better hold on to your ass, it's coming. — J.R. Moehringer

This building fool could only be Bess of Hardwicke, a woman whose name is seldom seen in print without the word "redoubtable" in front of it. I wondered if anyone ever called her redoubtable to her face. I redoubted it. — JoAnn Spears

The wheels where enormous wooden affairs, the back ones rounding up over the windows of the coach. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I've tried to keep pleasant," Mabel went on. "You don't know how I've tried. I have that verse pinned up on my dresser, about
The man worth while is the man who can smile,
When everything goes dead wrong."
"Take it down," Mother said cheerfully. "If there's a verse in the world that has been worked overtime, it's that one. I can't think of anything more inane than to smile when everything goes dead wrong, unless it is to cry when everything is passably right. That verse always seemed to me to be a surface sort of affair. Take it down and substitute 'I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence cometh my help.' That goes to the heart of things
when you feel that strength, then the dead-wrong things begin to miraculously right themselves. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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

Mother has to be coerced into doing a lot of things. — Bess Truman

I wanted to get in the car and drive, just drive. Just get to you. That's all I could think of, was
getting to you. But I knew I had to sober up first. So I went out, to the beach. I thought if I
walked awhile that might help. And it was cold, you know? The water was cold. I thought if I
splashed some on my face ... well, if I took a swim. That would help. I thought I'd only jump in, get wet. I thought it would only take a few minutes and I could be on my way. To you."
His voice snagged like a burr on silk. Heat leaked from the corners of Bess's eyes and slipped between her lips. Salt water. Always salt water.
I was stupid," Nick whispered.
You didn't know," she whispered back.
It took my feet out from under me. And all I could think of was how you were waiting, and I was going to fuck it all up again. How I was going to let you down. — Megan Hart

Bess hadn't ever been good with change. She'd never been good with taking leaps of faith, or risks or changes. When something worked, she tended to stick with it.
Even when something didn't. — Megan Hart

And now Abbie had the new experience of attempting to keep another person courageous. It was more trying than to keep up her own spirits. Why must she always be strong for other people? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I can't see any hope but a second front. The psychological effect would be great, even if they could not wade all the way to Berlin in 15 to 20 minutes. — Bess Truman

We don't know those bones but I know what it feels like to know a dead girl. Her text messages are in my phone. I don't look at them but I keep them there. It seems fucked up to delete a dead girl's texts. It seems pointless. She is already gone. — Gabby Bess

'Porgy and Bess' has never been thought of as a dance show, and yet it's filled with dance. It uses dance to punctuate the action, or as background, or as atmosphere; even when it's front and center, it isn't crucial. — Robert Gottlieb

It looks like you're going to have to put up with us for another four years. — Bess Truman

You can't evade a thing. Those who try to get around it are weak. Those who meet it gallantly are strong. So many women try to dodge life. They don't economize because it's inconvenient. They don't work because it's tiring. They don't have a child because it's painful. They don't look at the dead because it's saddening. Face them all, Laura. Face them squarely and meet them gallantly... as your grandmother did. For every one of the old experiences will be there... birth... marriage... death... disappointment... grief... little joys... little sorrows. You'll have to meet them all. It's part of the story... — Bess Streeter Aldrich

When I first was exposed to 'Porgy and Bess' many, many years ago, I was blown away by it - loved the music, overwhelmed by the production at the Met that I saw, and thought I want to play Bess someday. But I also knew they were stereotypes that were considered racist. — Audra McDonald

Mrs. Schneiderman's theory of life was that earth held no sorrow that food could not heal ... — Bess Streeter Aldrich

You know, Grace, it's queer but I don't feel narrow. I feel broad. How can I explain it to you, so you would understand? I've seen everything ... and I've hardly been away from this yard ...
I've been part of the beginning and part of the growth. I've married ... and borne children and looked into the face of death. Is childbirth narrow, Grace? Or marriage? Or death? When you've experienced all those things, Grace, the spirit has traveled although the body has been confined. I think travel is a rare privilege and I'm glad you can have it. But not every one who stays at home is narrow and not every one who travels is broad. I think if you can understand humanity ... can sympathize with every creature ... can put yourself into the personality of every one ... you're not narrow ... you're broad. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Strauss! Oh yes, he was so-so. He wrote pretty music- The Blue Danube and Tales from the Vienna Woods. But what is that compared to Mozart?'
Suddenly, Bess and George spotted Nancy coming towards them. 'Nancy!' the cousins chimed simultaneously and raced toward her.
'I see our bus driver is still at it.' Nancy grinned.
'All the way from Salzburg. George groaned.
'Did he run off the road again?'
'Not once but many times,' Bess said. 'It was awful. Once he got so angry because someone compared Beethoven to Mozart that he actually stopped the bus, ran outside, and shouted into the valley, Beethoven is a bore. Mozart is sublime. Over and over. The professor had to go out and drag him back to the bus. — Carolyn Keene

First lady has been a thankless position. Eleanor Roosevelt was brilliant and had strong views. She was criticized for her politics and for her appearance. Mrs. Roosevelt was attacked for being too involved in politics. Bess Truman was criticized for being uninvolved in politics. — Karen DeCrow

How widely its agencies vary,- To save, to ruin, to curse, to bless,- As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now of a Bloody Mary. — Thomas Hood

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

The whole period seemed to come alive to her sensitive imagination,
the people of the times, substantial and courageous, walked and talked with her. For the first time she was sensing to-day a romance in her own Midwest, a glamour over the lives of her own people. She wished she could hold to her heart the fleeting sensation until she could get pencil and paper. She wished she could catch it and hold it between the covers of a book. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I weave the company into what we laughingly call 'Jack's novel.' I write this novel for them about who they are and what's going on in their world. When I had 90 people in 'Porgy and Bess,' each had a story, history and family relationship. — Jack O'Brien

...And how that girl did talk against time to make us think she was crazy about her Louie. She called attention to his honesty and his ability and his nose and the shape of his feet and his blue blood and his energy and what-have-you, and all the time, I was dying to quote that smart old Billy Shakespeare who was just as wordy as she was: 'Methinks the lady doth protest too much. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Abbie would stop in her work and utter a prayer for him, - and, sent as it were from the bow of a mother's watchful care, bound by the cord of a mother's love, the little winged arrow on its flight must have reached Some one, - Somewhere. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

To fall in love is awfully simple, but to fall out of love is simply awful. — Bess Myerson

All the praise I received couldn't substitute for the praise I had never received from my mother at home. I longed for some wonderful man to come and save me from my life - but there didn't seem to be any, at least not for me. — Bess Myerson

Be careful," he said.
Bess looked at him. "I think it's too late for that."
He smiled. Then he kissed her, right there on the porch where the whole world could see. Right on the mouth. Right where she wanted. — Megan Hart

I believe in God. I believe in a higher power. And I do believe that God works in mysterious ways. — Davone Bess

I have a strong tennis arm. — Bess Truman

A piece of rusty pump and a pile of stones,
all that was left of the place he and Marthy had called home. Home. What a big word that was. Lots of attempts made lately to belittle it. Plenty of fun poked at it. Young folks laughed about it,
called it a place to park. Everybody wanted to get some place else, seemed like. They'd find out. They'd understand some day. When they got old, they'd know. They'd want to go home. sometimes in their lives everybody wanted to go home. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

All my girlhood I always planned to do something big ... something constructive. It's queer what ambitious dreams a girl has when she is young. I thought I would sing before big audiences or paint lovely pictures or write a splendid book. I always had that feeling in me of wanting to do something worth while. And just think, Laura ... now I am eighty and I have not painted nor written nor sung."
"But you've done lots of things, Grandma. You've baked bread ... and pieced quilts ... and taken care of your children."
Old Abbie Deal patted the young girl's hand. "Well ... well ... out of the mouths of babes. That's just it, Laura, I've only baked bread and pieced quilts and taken care of children. But some women have to, don't they? ... But I've dreamed dreams, Laura. All the time I was cooking and patching and washing, I dreamed dreams. And I think I dreamed them into the children ... and the children are carrying them out ... doing all the things I wanted to and couldn't. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Forks ceased their perpendicular traveling. — Bess Aldrich

Elizabeth and
Darcy merely looked at one another in awkward silence, until the latter reached both arms around
her. She was frozen-"What does he mean to do?" she thought. But his intentions were
respectable, for Darcy merely meant to retrieve his Brown Bess, which Elizabeth had affixed to
her back during her walk. She remembered the lead ammunition in her pocket and offered it to
him. "Your balls, Mr. Darcy?" He reached out and closed her hand around them, and offered,
"They belong to you, Miss Bennet." Upon this, their colour changed, and they were forced to look
away from one another, lest they laugh. — Seth Grahame-Smith

Except for our higher order of minds we are like the little moles under the earth carrying out blindly the work of digging, thinking our own dark passage-ways constitute all there is to the world. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Thoughts are acrobats, agile and quite often untrustworthy. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Why does everything eventually become terrible? — Gabby Bess

There ought to be a home for children to come to, - and their children, - a central place, to which they could always bring their joys and sorrows, - an old familiar place for them to return to on Sundays and Christmases. An old home ought always to stand like a mother with open arms. It ought to be here waiting for the children to come to it, - like homing pigeons. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Jeanne sensed herself becoming more depressed after tweeting. She felt lonely after all of her thoughts had left her and were now staring at her on the Internet. Jeanne sometimes felt fearful of posting her thoughts on twitter. After posting a thought to twitter she sometimes thought, "No, I should have saved that." Jeanne felt unsure as to why she would need to save her thoughts. Maybe she needed to somehow save up all of her thoughts like carnival tickets, and she would be able to one day trade them in for one big, good thing. She could possible trade them in for a giant stuffed animal with a disproportionately large head that is not a trademarked character but very similar looking to a trademarked character.

She thought that if she ever wrote a novel it would be made up of every thought she has ever had. She would title it "One Big Good Thing" even if it were small and bad. — Gabby Bess

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

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

I know Jane is dear to you," Bess said. "I also know that she's in danger. But Jane is one person, Edward. There are thousands of lives at stake. There's a kingdom on the edge of a knife. We must tread carefully. — Cynthia Hand

Not only do I have celebrity, but I have notoriety, which is sometimes more seductive. — Bess Myerson

Such widely different things as war and picnics will surely show a man up. — Bess Truman

People want gimmicks. They have to lose 10 pounds by 8:30 tonight. — Bess Myerson

Everybody asks me, 'So, what are you doing now?' Why must I be doing something? All my life I've been doing something. All my life I've been doing. For now, I'm being
being quiet, being grateful. — Bess Myerson

It's nice to win. — Bess Truman

The wind was blowing from the east and the cedars bent before it, - blowing from the east like the breath of the war god. And Fred and Stanley were waving their hats gayly back to her, while the cedars bent and the wind blew from the east. They were like her own boys marching off to war. Children of her children, she loved them as she had loved their parents. Did a woman never get over loving? Deep love brought relatively deep heartaches. Why could not a woman of her age, whose family was raised, relinquish the hold upon her emotions? Why could she not have a peaceful old age, wherein there entered neither great affection nor its comrade, great sorrow? She had seen old women who seemed not to care as she was caring, whose emotions seemed to have died with their youth. Could she not be one of them? For a long time she stood in the window and looked at the cedars twisting before the east wind, like so many helpless women under the call from the east. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

There were plenty of white males on campus with Bess, but they had never paid her any attention, and she had returned the favor. She'd never got a chance to marvel at how beautiful their creamy complexion was or how easy it could be to get lost in a bright green gaze. What the heck? This guy could have very well killed two people, set them on fire, and come to hurt her, and she was standing there in front of him coming to some silly realization that maybe she had missed out on a certain population of guys based on the color of their skin. — Inger Iversen

It was queer how it all hurt you--how the odor of the night, the silver sheen of the moon, the moist feeling of the dew, the whispering of the night breeze, how somewhere down in your throat it hurt you. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Now about those ghosts. I'm sure they're here and I'm not half so alarmed at meeting up with any of them as I am at having to meet the live nuts I have to see every day. — Bess Truman

Aunt Grace was leaving ... Looking after her a moment, Laura had another feeling of tenderness toward her. How we live our lives side by side with those whom we never know or understand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

He [Sam] wrote it with great flourishes, his hand making many dizzy elliptical journeys before it settled down to make a elaborate 'E' with a curving tail as long as some prehistoric baboons. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I was born on Delaware Street. We have never desired another home. — Bess Truman

It took all their common sense and philosophy to face life these days. The two are synonymous. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

...For can you think how it would be, to never, never hear a meadow lark sing again...? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

She imagined the universe as a giant sad thing
that consistently felt alienated by itself because it was too large and too sad for anyone
to possibly understand it. Jane felt bad for the universe.
Maybe the universe needed her friends more than she did. — Gabby Bess

When you realize that the uncut 'Porgy and Bess' started me off, that I'd have the opportunity to do a ton of 'Stoppard,' 'Hairspray,' that I'm able to do 'Il Trittico' at the Met - how do I top that? — Jack O'Brien

They built three new houses on their craggy private island and gave them each a name: Windemere for Penny, Red Gate for Carrie, and Cuddledown for Bess. — E. Lockhart

I wouldn't be a good wife, but I would be a wife in a way that was cinematically compelling. — Gabby Bess

I close my eyes to the ability
to inhabit four places
in long enough intervals
to miss them all. — Gabby Bess

...The last name had been entered by Samuel Peters' agile pen with much shading of downward strokes and many extra corkscrew appendages... — Bess Streeter Aldrich

It won't be long,' said Philippa cheerfully, her mother's ring in her voice. 'You know what Bess says. There's nothing in this world a drop of aqua-vitae in a sheep's bladder won't cure. Stop the Somervilles with a knife! It needs artillery.' And she blew her nose hard. — Dorothy Dunnett

I really don't like talking about diets. — Bess Myerson

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

Without fail, he always signed off on these letters with love and he always included Whiskey and Bess in the list of individuals sending this love my way. At the time it made me laugh, it made me embarrassed, but as soon as I softened, as soon as I matured back into his son, I came to appreciate what he was saying
an endearing and magnanimous reminder of how family will always be the sum of its individual members, be they human or animal. — Nick Trout

A human brain is encased in a skull and each human exists in separete body so it seems like there is always going to be a feeling of disconnect. One human being will never completely understand what another human is thinking or feeling — Gabby Bess

Myself I love a thunderstorm better than anything. Sometimes I will run to the top of the hill to whirl around and around on my Indian Rock in the wind, it is like a dance I can not stop. The smell of the lightning goes into your nose and down your whole body. Old Bess says if you get hit by lightning yet live you will have special powers, well I could use some of those. So I don't care if I get hit or not. — Lee Smith

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

I'm not conniving - that has a pejorative context. I'm not sitting in back rooms making deals. That's not my style. — Bess Myerson

You can't be beautiful and hate because hate is a corroding disease and affects the way you look ... You can't hide it - ever. It shows in your eyes. It warps your expression. It affects your character, your personality. — Bess Myerson

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

I never like other people to clean for me. I don't want them to invade my own privacy. — Bess Myerson

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

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

Mama never told me, 'Bess, you did good.' She wanted the best for us and she was an incredible administrator. She ran those three kids, that house, the whole bit. But if I looked fine, she'd find something wrong - the color, the hem ... I used to tell her, 'Mama, don't worry when you're not with me, because you're with me.' — Bess Myerson

Love is the light that you see by. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Juliana imagined her funeral: a formless crowd of people in a trivial location, chatting amongst themselves, saying things like, "Oh thank God. Finally. — Gabby Bess