Old Farm Quotes & Sayings

Oh, take the liberty! That's what I would have done if Ethan and Mattie had run off together and left me on this forsaken farm. I would have packed my satchel and my portmanteau and climbed aboard a train bound West, and gazed out the window at what there was to see across this vast country. City spires in the midst of wheatfields, and miles of chards with fruit on the bough, and high bridges over broad rivers, and mountains of clouds the likes of which I'd never seen, and birds of a kind I'd never seen before. And there'd be a city where I'd stay, and there'd be an old couple in a fine house of many rooms, and I'd tend them and see
they kept neat, and on my days off I'd wind my black hair in a fashionable way with tortoiseshell combs, and hold my head high, and go out to see what that city had to offer. — Gina Berriault

Said the reeve to the maid who was fresh to the farm
'Let me show you the beasts of the yard!'
Here's a cow that gives milk, and a pig that's for ham
Here's a cur and a goat and a lamb;
Here's a horse tall and proud, and a well-trained old hawk,
But the thing you should see is this excellent cock! — Scott Lynch

I pulled cotton at 6 years old and worked on the peanut farm and paper route. — Johnny Bench

In those days, when you got boxed, that was it. A lot of old people were there because somebody wanted the farm. It was about property. People are treated like property. — Kate Millett

I see a time when the farmer will not need to live in a lonely cabin on a lonely farm. I see the farmers coming together in groups. I see them with time to read, and time to visit with their fellows. I see them enjoying lectures in beautiful halls, erected in every village. I see them gather like the Saxons of old upon the green at evening to sing and dance. I see cities rising near them with schools, and churches, and concert halls, and theaters. I see a day when the farmer will no longer be a drudge and his wife a bond slave, but happy men and women who will go singing to their pleasant tasks upon their fruitful farms. When the boys and girls will not go west nor to the city; when life will be worth living. In that day the moon will be brighter and the stars more glad, and pleasure and poetry and love of life come back to the man who tills the soil. — Hamlin Garland

Remember when you fell out of that tree on the farm when you were ten, and broke your arm? Remember how he made them let him ride with you in the ambulance on the way to the hospital? He kicked and yelled till they gave in." "You laughed," said Clary, remembering, "and my mom hit you in the shoulder." "It was hard not to laugh. Determination like that in a 10-year-old is something to see. He was like a pit bull." "If pit bulls wore glasses and were allergic to ragweed." -Luke and Clary talking about Simon, pg.211- — Cassandra Clare

It was Dolana, at the salt farm, who first told me about the gaze of men: that look of temporary possession that some men pressed against female flesh. About its dangers and possibilities. It can be used to survive, Dolana had said softly, showing me the power that lay in reflecting a man's desire. And even at twelve years old, the knowledge of it was already in the way I moved my head, my hands, my shoulders. But Dolana had whispered her secrets to a girl. And I had to become a boy. I had to stop being alert to the turn of a man's head towards me. Stop glancing up to meet his gaze in fleeting connection. Stop falsely veiling my eyes from his momentary interest. It was hard to train out of my body, but I practised and learned to cloak myself in the skin and gaze of a boy. — Alison Goodman

My first thought was that a tornado had somehow picked me up and carried me off, like in the Wizard of Oz. No old witches pedaled by, and I didn't see any flying farm animals or chicken coops, and after a few agonizing minutes, I fell deep into unconsciousness again. — J.R. Rain

I didn't actually know what a vegetarian was until I was 13 years old. I know in this day and age it's hard to believe that, but I think because I grew up on a farm, I wasn't indulged in magazines, newspapers, Internet, television. And so, for some reason, I was never exposed to what a vegetarian was. — Abbie Cornish

Life on the farm had fed his soul since he was a child. he was ever grateful to Gott for giving him a chance to work the land and live by the seasons. It was a good life...but a lonely one for a man his age, a man too old to be living with his family. — Rosalind Lauer

The tree was so old, and stood there so alone, that his childish heart had been filled with compassion; if no one else on the farm gave it a thought, he would at least do his best to, even though he suspected that his child's words and child's deeds didn't make much difference. It had stood there before he was born, and would be standing there after he was dead, but perhaps, even so, it was pleased that he stroked its bark every time he passed, and sometimes, when he was sure he wasn't observed, even pressed his cheek against it. — Karl Ove Knausgard

Then again: from the critic's point of view, one of the truly wonderful things about the Star Wars universe is that the territory is so sprawling and borrows from so many sources that it's possible to find just about anything here, if you look hard enough. For example, the story of the original movie can also be summarized as, A restless young boy chafes at life on the dusty old family farm, until he meets a wizard and is swept away to a wondrous land where he meets some munchkins, a tin man, a cowardly lion and Harrison Ford as the scarecrow. — David Brin

It had all been predicted in Herzl's 1902 novel, Old New Land, in which he imagines visiting the new Jewish state in 1923 and finding the Jews not only exploiting the Dead Sea's mineral wealth but making the desert green through irrigation and living in farm collectives that exported produce to Europe. However, he also predicted that Israel would be a German-speaking nation and that Arabs would eagerly welcome Jews for the economic development they would bring to the region. — Mark Kurlansky

The air was fresh and crisp and had a distinct smell which was a mixture of the dried leaves on the ground and the smoke from the chimneys and the sweet ripe apples that were still clinging onto the branches in the orchard behind the house. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

Way back when I was four, I became increasingly sickly and spiritless. My mother took me to the doctor, who poked and prodded and deliberated. In the end, he pronounced, "She's depressed." Depressed at four years old. Why? No one had an answer....I have long evaded the real reasons for my discontentment. I still can't tell what they are, precisely, but I feel their presence most acutely in moments like this one with my grandmother, imagining a day in a big-box store that had replaced an old farm. — Alisa Smith

I enjoy racing historic motorcars from the '50s and '60s. The seed of my interest was planted when I was about 12 years old and took over my mother's Morris Minor. I drove it around my father's farm. But my favorite car is still a McLaren F1, which I have had for 10 years. — Rowan Atkinson

Shy South comes home to her farm to find a blackened shell, her brother and sister stolen, and knows she'll have to go back to bad old ways if she's ever to see them again. She sets off in pursuit with only her cowardly old step-father Lamb for company. But it turns out he's hiding a bloody past of his own. None bloodier. Their journey will take them across the lawless plains, to a frontier town gripped by gold fever, through feuds, duels, and massacres, high into unmapped mountains to a reckoning with ancient enemies, and force them into alliance with Nicomo Cosca, infamous soldier of fortune, a man no one should ever have to trust ... — Joe Abercrombie

Ye gods and fishes, lad, every town has its resident witch. Every town hides some old Greek pagan priest, some Roman worshipper of tiny gods who ran up the roads, hid in culverts, sank in caves to escape the Christians! In every tiny village, boy, in every scrubby farm the old religions hide out ... all the little lollygaggin' cults, all flavors and types, scramble to survive. See how they run, boys! — Ray Bradbury

Giles' shameful death was, of course, the sign of a crazy old man's inability to adapt to a new world. But his belief, that if there was no work to be had on our estate, then there was nothing for him but the workhouse, was probably right ... His death was not a sensible reaction to our attempts to farm rationally and profitably. The last thing I needed was a pang of conscience about such an old fool. And I would be mad myself if I even considered that his death should be laid at my door, that I had made his world
Wideacre
unbearable. — Philippa Gregory

I hadn't watched any Hitchcock movies when I made 'Tom at the Farm,' except for 'Vertigo' when I was 8 years old. I don't have a sophisticated film knowledge, but I have seen the legacy of classic movies in broader entertainment. — Xavier Dolan

Then, with all my being I felt I was wildly, desperately in love. Not only with Maya and her dark locks flying in the wind as she ran. But also with the plants that swayed as she passed, and with that grey, sad sky and the air that smelled of rain. I was even in love with that old piece of farm machinery with flat tyres, sensing that it was quite essential to the harmony that had just been created before my eyes ... — Andrei Makine

The official line is that, after the war, women couldn't wait to leave the offices and assembly lines and government agencies. But the real story was that the economy couldn't have men coming home without women going home, not unless it wanted a lot of unemployed vets. So the problem became unemployed women. "How you gonna keep us down on the farm after we've seen the world,"' she ad-libs to the old World War I tune. 'Enter the women's magazines, and cookbook publishers, and all these advertising agencies carrying on about the scourge of germs in the toilet bowl, and scuffs on the kitchen floor, and, my favorite, house B.O. Enter chicken hash that takes two and a half hours to prepare. I can just hear them sitting around the conference tables. 'That'll keep the gals out of trouble. — Ellen Feldman

Oh, I started out young. They handed me a cotton sack when I was about 8 years old. Give me a little small one, tell me to fill it up. I never did like the farm but I was out there with my grandmother, didn't want to get away from around her too far. — Muddy Waters

He taught me that the whole world was a holy place. That's why he loved our old farm, loved the dirt under his feet. Everything was magic to him. — Lena Coakley

Calo bit the inside of his cheek, retuned his harp, and then began again:
"Said the reeve to the maid who was fresh to the farm
'Let me show you the beasts of the yard!'
Here's a cow that gives milk, and a pig that's for ham
Here's a cur and a goat and a lamb;
Here's a horse tall and proud, and a well-trained old hawk,
But the thing you should see is this excellent cock!"
"Where could you possibly have learned that?" shouted Chains. Calo broke up in a fit of giggles, but Galdo picked up the song with a deadpan expression on his face:
"Oh, some cocks rise early and some cocks stand tall,
But the cock now in question works hardest of all!
And they say hard's a virtue, in a cock's line of work
So what say you, lovely, will you give it a - — Scott Lynch

The California I knew, old rancho California, is gone. It just doesn't exist, except maybe in little pockets. I lived on the edge of the Mojave Desert, an area that used to be farm country. There were all these fresh-produce stands with avocados and date palms. You could get a dozen artichokes for a buck or something. Totally wiped out now. — Sam Shepard

I've had lengthy discussions with European farm leaders. It is clear they have an agricultural strategy to support their producers and gain dominance in world agricultural trade. They're gaining markets the old-fashioned way - they're buying them. — Kent Conrad

But I tell you what - if you come across a farm boy and an old wizard, shiv them, take their horses, and go make your own destiny. — Michael R. Underwood

Isn't man an amazing animal? He kills wildlife - birds, kangaroos, deer, all kinds of cats, coyotes, beavers, groundhogs, mice, foxes, and dingoes - by the millions in order to protect his domestic animals and their feed. Then he kills domestic animals by the billions and eats them. This in turn kills man by the million, because eating all those animals leads to degenerative - and fatal - health conditions like heart disease, kidney disease, and cancer. So then man tortures and kills millions more animals to look for cures for these diseases. Elsewhere, millions of other human beings are being killed by hunger and malnutrition because food they could eat is being used to fatten domestic animals. Meanwhile, some people are dying of sad laughter at the absurdity of man, who kills so easily and so violently, and once a year sends out a card praying for 'Peace on Earth. — C. David Coats

WILSON RAWLS was born on a small farm in the Oklahoma Ozarks. He spent his youth in the heart of the Cherokee nation, prowling the hills and river bottoms with his only companion, an old bluetick hound. Rawls's first writing was done with his fingers in the dust of the country roads and in the sands along the river, and his earliest stories were told to his dog. Not until Rawls's family moved to Muskogee and he could attend high school did he encounter books. Where the Red Fern Grows has become a modern classic and has been made into a widely acclaimed motion picture. — Wilson Rawls

As the bus took us north on a connection of dark farm roads and smaller highways, I started to wonder where all the cars were. How could the streets be so empty? How could people sleep when there was so much at stake, so much happening, when there were so many reasons to be awake and alive?
And I wondered how it was that I could feel both empty, like these streets, and yet so full at the same time. And those weren't the only contrasting poles inside me. I felt sad and happy. Scared and exhilarated. I felt young and old. — Dana Reinhardt

Being an old farm boy myself, chickens coming home to roost never did make me sad; they've always made me glad. — Malcolm X

So Jason, in England, do you eat these 'Farmer burgers?'" Wong Tong asked.
"Farmer burgers? I don't know what they are?"
"Maybe I have the name wrong. I remember the name from the song," Wong Tong explained.
"What song?" Jason asked.
"You know the 'E, I, E, I, O' song."
'E, I, E, I, O' song?
Jason started to roar with laughter. He tried to speak but was laughing, much to the annoyance of Wong Tong. He held his chest, laughing still hurt his ribs.
"You mean the 'Old Macdonald had a farm' song. You mean Macdonald's burgers," he said, laughing. "Yes, I have had them. They're good. — Mark A. Cooper

Bradenton reminded him of an old farmer, walking the perimeter of his property every day, testing the fences and peering suspiciously at his neighbors, making sure that his side and their side were clearly delineated. It had taken Oliver years to learn his lesson: keep quiet and let men like Bradenton test the fences. It wouldn't do them any good, and if you were careful, one day you'd be in a position to buy their whole damned farm. And so Oliver held his tongue and smiled. — Courtney Milan

TELLING TIME

Before she was old, she took canoe trips in the rain

and buried her passions deep within nature poems.


Ten years before she was old, her husband died

and developers paid a mighty price for their dairy farm.


She knew she was getting old, when rest stops in Iowa

changed over to those crazy automated washrooms.


When she was old, God helped with little things (growing tomatoes in her garden)

but was missing on big ticket items (bringing her husband back).


She knew she had lived too long

when her grandson explained extinction to his stuffed polar bear. — Carol Baldwin

I inherited the old family turkey farm, and I'm turning it into a fun place to go for my kids. — Douglas Carter Beane

Hitchcock's debut novel introduces 14-year-old Jessie Pearl, who endures more than her fair share of hardships, beginning with the death of her mother. Opening in 1922, the story follows the daily activities on the family's North Carolina tobacco farm. ...Hitchcock's story is gently and lovingly written, with elements drawn from her own family history. Its detailed honesty about the particular struggles of the period, especially for strong women (Maude, a no-nonsense midwife, is particularly memorable), is significant.
- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY — Publishers Weekly

On harsh, frigid January days, when the winds are relentless and the snow piles up around us, I often think of our small feathered friends back on the Third Line. I wonder if the old feeder is still standing in the orchard and if anyone thinks to put out a few crumbs and some bacon drippings for our beautiful, hungry, winter birds. In the stark, white landscape they provided a welcome splash of colour and their songs gave us hope through the long, silent winter. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

I didn't want to go. I mean I really didn't want to go. I had tried every trick I could think of to get out of spending the entire summer at the old lady's farm. But Mom hadn't been swayed a single millimeter by my whining, my yelling, or my threats to purposely flunk out of seventh grade next year if she didn't send me somewhere, anywhere, else. — J.B. Cantwell

I cannot always sympathize with that demand which we hear so frequently for cheap things. Things may be too cheap. They are too cheap when the man or woman who produces them upon the farm or the man or woman who produces them in the factory does not get out of them living wages with a margin for old age and for a dowry for the incidents that are to follow. I pity the man who wants a coat so cheap that the man or woman who produces the cloth or shapes it into a garment will starve in the process — Benjamin Harrison

McGahern still lives on and works a farm in Leitrim, and friends say that even though he has held high profile academic posts round the world as a visiting professor he remains essentially a countryman.

Last term he taught in an upstate New York college, but seeing him in the soulless urban grid of downtown Syracuse wearing an old tweed flat cap and long black overcoat, he could have been in an Irish agricultural town on market day as he casually engaged strangers on the street to ask for advice on finding a decent restaurant. Friends say he has extraordinary confidence in who he is and where he's from - he behaves pretty much the same way wherever is and whoever he is with. — John McGahern

The old farm roads a four lane that leads to the mall, and our dreams are all guillotines waiting to fall. — Ani DiFranco

One day I was driving down the farm track in the pickup,with two of the little boys, aged about four or five, sitting beside me. One of them turned to me conversationally and said, "Baba, don't worry. When you get old one day you'll be sitting here where we are, and we'll be driving you around! — Angus Buchan

I am an author-illustrator of children's books - and yet - I must confess I don't do the books for the kids. When I'm working on a book I'm somewhere else - at the circus - or a rustic old farm - or deep in a forest - with no thought of who might read the book or what age group it would appeal to. I write them so I can illustrate them. — Bill Peet

The great chasm of memory from her childhood in the intimate country surroundings of Cossethay and the Marsh Farm - she remembered the servant Tilly, who used to give her bread and butter sprinkled with brown sugar, in the old living-room where the grandfather clock had two pink roses in a basket painted above the figures on the face - and now when she was travelling into the unknown with Birkin, an utter stranger - was so great, that it seemed she had no identity, that the child she had been, playing in Cossethay churchyard, was a little creature of history, not really herself. — D.H. Lawrence

Bill Door found a piece of chalk in the farm's old smithy, located a piece of board among the debris, and wrote very carefully for some time. Then he wedged the board in front of the henhouse and pointed Cyril toward it.
THIS YOU WILL READ, he said.
Cyril peered myopically at the "Cock-A Doodle-Doo" in heavy gothic script. Somewhere in his tiny mad chicken mind a very distinct and chilly understanding formed that he'd better learn to read very, very quickly. — Terry Pratchett

But it was all a pipe dream. As well try to stop an avalanche as to stop the moving frontier. American immigrants and emigrants wanted their share of land - free land - a farm in the family - the dream of European peasants for hundreds of years - the New World's great gift to the old. Moving west with the tide were the hucksters, the lawyers, merchants, and other men on the make looking for the main chance, men who could manufacture a land warrant in the wink of an eye. This — Stephen E. Ambrose

Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants? — Franklin D. Roosevelt

I'm Irish as hell: Kelly on one side, Shanley on the other. My father had been born on a farm in the Irish Midlands. He and his brothers had been shepherds there, cattle and sheep, back in the early 1920s. I grew up surrounded by brogues and Irish music, but stayed away from the old country till I was over 40. I just couldn't own being Irish. — John Patrick Shanley

These shirts are perfectly serviceable."
I rolled my eyes. "Serviceable? Anyan, I get it that you're utilitarian. If we were in the old country you'd write odes to factories. You'd sing the praises of the communal farm while you gnawed on a perfectly 'serviceable' radish. But this is the new millennium. In America. Buy a button-up. — Nicole Peeler

I read The Old Curiosity Shop before I began Blackwood Farm. I was amazed at the utter madness in that book. — Anne Rice

You seemed, in your power, as free as man can be. But at what cost? What made you free? And I... I was made, moulded like clay, by the will of the women serving the Old Powers, or serving the men who made all services and ways and places, I no longer know which. Then I went free, with you, for a moment, and with Ogion. But it was not my freedom. Only it gave me a choice; and I chose. I chose to mould myself like clay to the use of a farm and a farmer and our children. I made myself a vessel. I know its shape. But not the clay. Life danced me. I know the dances. But I don't know who the dancer is. — Ursula K. Le Guin

His grandparents lived on an old farm. Like he should have considered that psycho teenage girls might be leaving tainted steaks for his dog to find. If you hurt him, I'll kill you. — Brigid Kemmerer

Back in the days of the great Depression, an old sign dangled by one staple from a piece of rusting barbed wire. The owner of the farm had written:
'Burned out by drought,
Drowned out by flud waters,
Et out by jack-rabbits,
Sold out by sheriff,
STILL HERE. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Mummy dying with it; Christ dying with it, nailed hand and foot; hanging over the bed in the night-nursery; hanging year after year in the dark little study at Farm Street with the shining oilcloth; hanging in the dark church where only the old charwoman raises the dust and one candle burns; hanging at noon, high among the crowds and the soldiers; no comfort except a sponge of vinegar and the kind words of a thief; hanging for ever; never the cool sepulchre and the grave clothes spread on the stone slab, never the oil and spices in the dark cave; always the midday sun and the dice clicking for the seamless coat. — Evelyn Waugh

To William Ford, on his own land at last, free of the old country, the farm was liberating; to Henry Ford, bored and restless, it was like a prison. (Cows came to symbolize his hatred of the farm. They were lazy, and they lay around all the time. He spent an entire lifetime railing against them. "The cow is the crudest machine in the world," he once said. On another occasion he said that if people would destroy all the cows in the world, they would eliminate the sources of war. When his company became large, he had his labs working constantly to find substitutes for dairy products.) — David Halberstam

You duck! You flying yellow duck! And you took this long to tell me?! When Sarah gets excited, random animals pop into her speech like she has an Old MacDonald Had a Farm kind of Tourette syndrome. — Jandy Nelson

God's nothing more than a twelve-year-old kid with an ant farm. He's always watching, but He's never gonna do anything. — John Constantine

When I was five, a tree was my best friend. An old peppercorn on Grandpa's little farm. I'd haul myself into its calloused arms and hide from the world in its foliage. Apart from the pleasure of looking down on unsuspecting adults, I could be Robin Hood in a one-tree Sherwood Forest or Johnny Weissmuller in his jungle. I fell out of my friend once while Tarzan-ing. Gashed a large chunk from a leg. Almost 70 years later, there's still a scar. — Phillip Adams

I live in the same house I've lived in for 25 years. I haven't gone off and bought mansions. Even though my subject is living, living in a mansion wouldn't do for my readers. I have to keep my credibility alive with my readers, so we're in the same place. I just make that place nicer and nicer. And that's a secret. People don't know that. People think, oh, she lives in this fabulous place, but it's the same old place. It started out like a farm, it got to be a farmette, then it got to be an estatelet. I built a wall; it helped a lot. But it's the same place, the same grounded nature. — Martha Stewart

Shhhh," Johnny soothed, sliding his hands up and down her back, nuzzling her hair. "Car thieves don't cry, baby. You gotta toughen up if you're gonna have a future with good old Clyde here."

"I like it when you do that."

"What?"

"Call me baby," Maggie whispered.

"You liked it when I called you Bonnie too," he replied with a smile in his voice. "Why?"

"You used to call me baby all the time. It makes me believe you can love me again."

Johnny wrapped his arms tightly around her waist and lifted her to him, kissing her tear-streaked cheeks before he touched his lips to hers.

"I'm already there Maggie. I fell in love when you begged me to help you escape the cops. I fell in love when we danced to Nat King Cole singing 'Stardust' on a moonlit beach. Hell, I fell in love when you told me how blondes spell farm."

"E-I-E-I-O," Maggie quipped wetly.

Johnny laughed and held her tightly. — Amy Harmon

Some things were done a certain way and they had been done that same way for ages. Most of the time it was a good thing, a reliable thing, and we grew up being able to count on life being very predictable and very dependable. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

The farm is one field to the east of the railroad track that used to connect New Orleans with Chicago. The track runs beside Highway 45, an old U.S. route that unites Chicago with Mobile, Alabama. — Bobbie Ann Mason

A pedestrian seems in this country to be a sort of beast of passage - stared at, pitied, suspected and shunned by everyone who meets him ... Every passing coachman called out to me: "Do you want to ride on the outside?" If I met only a farm worker on a horse he would say to me companionably "Warm walking sir," and when I passed through a village the old women in their bewilderment would let out a "God Almighty! — Karl Philipp Moritz

Now Momma's done away with the old black kettle she used to cook in when I was just littleAnd the door ain't sprung on her electric rangeThat little old farm and home we had it ain't there no more and that's too badFolks are doing away with the simple things ... — Dolly Parton

For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay ... — W. Somerset Maugham

I moved to Seattle when I was two or three years old. Had my early education there, and would spend summers on the farm in Maryland. Then I went to boarding school in New Hampshire, to St. Paul's School. From there, I moved to London. — Alexis Denisof

In Haven, old houses didn't settle. They carried a life of their own, and Blackwater farm was no exception. This was a house that would never be a home. The best they could hope for would be to co-exist with the ghosts of the past.
- The Silent Twin — Caroline Mitchell

I lived on the farm with my parents and grandparents. I had no playmates as a young child, and I was indulged. I helped my grandmother piece quilts, and we made pretty albums, an old-fashioned pastime. We cut poems and pictures out of magazines. — Bobbie Ann Mason

My grandmother lives on a farm. And growing up, I assumed that the animals that I was eating and the animals that I was wearing all came from farms like my grandmother's. They all had names, they were all smothered with love, and they all lived to be very old. — Ginnifer Goodwin

In his imagination, he grabbed his dad by the throat and squeezed until an old mans face turned purple. No pleading, no begging, simply ... nothing. — Stephen Craig

An old farm is always more than the people under its roof. It is the past as well as the present, and vanished generations have built themselves into it as well as left their footsteps in the worn woodwork of the stair. — Henry Beston

Dave put his head down and ate his eggs. He heard his mother leave the kitchen, humming Old MacDonald all the way down the hall.
Standing in the yard now, knuckles aching, he could hear it too. Old MacDonald had a farm. And everything was hunky-dory on it. You farmed and tilled and reaped and sowed and everything was just fucking great. Everyone got along, even the chickens and the cows, and no one needed to talk about anything, because nothing bad ever happened and nobody had any secrets because secrets were for bad people, people who climbed in cars that smelled of apples with strange men and disappeared for four days, only to come back home and find everyone they'd known had disappeared, too, been replaced with smiley-faced look-alikes who'd do just about anything but listen to you. — Dennis Lehane

In the shop, breathing the scent of dusty grease and oil; in the old house, staring into the living room where Dad and Jake used to take naps together on the couch; in the sheep barn, remembering the joy implicit in so much baaing life; in every inch of the farm, I recalled my father's presence. — Julene Bair

On the one hand, the Republicans are telling industrial workers that the high cost of food in the cities is due to this government's farm policy. On the other hand, the Republicans are telling the farmers that the high cost of manufactured goods on the farm is due to this government's labor policy.
That's plain hokum. It's an old political trick: "If you can't convince 'em, confuse 'em." But this time it won't work. — Harry Truman

When I removed into the country, it was to occupy an old-fashioned farm-house, which had no piazza - a deficiency the more regretted, because not only did I like piazzas, as somehow combining the coziness of in-doors with the freedom of out-doors, and it is so pleasant to inspect your thermometer there, but the country round about was such a picture, that in berry time no boy climbs hill or crosses vale without coming upon easels planted in every nook, and sunburnt painters painting there. — Herman Melville

The moon rises. The red cubs rolling
In the ferns by the rotten oak
Stare over a marsh and a meadow
To the farm's white wisp of smoke.
A spark burns, high in heaven.
Deer thread the blossoming rows
Of the old orchard, rabbits
Hop by the well-curb. The cock crows
From the tree by the widow's walk;
Two stars in the trees to the west,
Are snared, and an owl's soft cry
Runs like a breath through the forest.
Here too, though death is hushed, though joy
Obscures, like night, their wars,
The beings of this world are swept
By the Strife that moves the stars. — Randall Jarrell

O'er rivers, through woods,
With winding and weaves,
Their school bus sailed on
Through the new-fallen leaves.

When out on the road
There arose such a clatter,
They threw down their windows
To see what was the matter.

When what with their wondering eyes
Should they see,
But a miniature farm
And eight tiny turkey.

And a little old man
So lively and rugged,
They knew in a moment
It was Farmer Mack Nuggett.

He was dressed all in denim
From his head to his toe,
With a pinch of polyester
And a dash of Velcro.

And then in a twinkling
They heard in the straw
The prancing and pawing
Of each little claw.

More rapid than chickens
His cockerels they came.
He whistled and shouted
And called them by name:

"Now Ollie, now Stanley, now Larry and Moe,
On Wally, on Beaver, on Shemp and Groucho! — Dav Pilkey

It is very difficult to know people and I don't think one can ever really know any but one's own countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; they are also the region in which they are born, the city apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games they played as children, the old wives' tales they overheard, the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It is all these things that have made them what they are, and these are the things that you can't come to know by hearsay, you can only know them if you have lived them. — W. Somerset Maugham

It was a lovely summer weather in the country, and the golden corn, the green oats, and the haystacks piled up in the meadows looked beautiful. The stork walking about on his long red legs chattered in the Egyptian language, which he had learnt from his mother. The corn-fields and meadows were surrounded by large forests, in the midst of which were deep pools. It was, indeed, delightful to walk about in the country. In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farm-house close by a deep river, and from the house down to the water side grew great burdock leaves, so high, that under the tallest of them a little child could stand upright. The spot was as wild as the centre of a thick wood. In — Hans Christian Andersen

By putting "God" and "work" in the same title - in, so to speak, the same breath - Mr. Keeble challenges the modern orthodoxy, which has done its best to keep those terms separate. The great dissociation of which T. S. Eliot and others have spoken has made it likely that people will exclude from their forms of worship any reference to their economic life or the quality of their work, and that they will exclude from their work any sense of religious obligation. By bringing those two words back into their old association, and by the honor he gives to people who conscientiously kept them associated, Mr. Keeble restores to practical viability the idea of good work. He brings again into view the possibility of religion practicable in work, and work compatible with worship and wholly meant. Wendell Berry Lanes Landing Farm Port Royal, Kentucky — Brian Keeble

My mother's people are Old Order Mennonite - horse and buggy Mennonite, very close cousins to the Amish. I grew up in Lancaster County and lived near Amish farm land. — Beverly Lewis

I grew up on a farm. I didn't have health insurance until I was 24 years old. So, I didn't even know I was poor until the government told me I was poor. — Marlin Stutzman

A farm includes the passion of the farmer's heart, the interest of the farm's customers, the biological activity in the soil, the pleasantness of the air about the farm
it's everything touching, emanating from, and supplying that piece of landscape. A farm is virtually a living organism. The tragedy of our time is that cultural philosophies and market realities are squeezing life's vitality out of most farms. And that is why the average farmer is now 60 years old. Serfdom just doesn't attract the best and brightest. — Joel Salatin

When I was 9 or 10 years old, my dad took me over to a neighboring farm to help get stuff for the meal. The farmer, Vic, told me to look at all the turkeys and pick one out. I saw a cute one with a silly walk and cried, 'Him!' Before my pointing finger had even dropped to my side, Vic had grabbed the turkey by the neck and slit [the animal's] throat. Blood and feathers went flying. I had sentenced that turkey to death! Up until then, I didn't know where meat came from - and I've been a vegetarian ever since. — Sarah Silverman

We stepped a little quicker, laughed a little louder and chatted over the fences a little longer. We gathered bouquets of wildflowers, dined on fresh strawberries and began to ride our bikes up and down the Third Line again. We ran up grassy hills and rolled back down through the young clover, feeling light and giddy, free from our heavy boots and coats. There were trilliums to pick for Mother and tadpoles to catch and keep in a jar. Spring had come at last to Bathurst Township and was she ever worth the wait! — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

The undulating terrain was cloaked in lush abundance, the vineyards like garlands of deep green and yellow, orchards and farms sprouting here and there, hillocks of dry golden grass crowned by beautiful sun-gilt houses, barns and silos. And overhead was the bluest sky she'd ever seen, as bright and hard polished as marble.
There was something about the landscape that caught at her emotions. It was both lush and intimidating, its beauty so abundant. Far from the bustle of the city, she was a complete stranger here, like Dorothy stepping out of her whirling house into the land of Oz. Farm stands overflowing with local produce marked the long driveways into farms with whimsical names- Almost Paradise, One Bad Apple, Toad Hollow. Boxes and bushels were displayed on long, weathered tables. Between the farms, brushy tangles of berries and towering old oak trees lined the roadway. — Susan Wiggs

The driving aesthetic of military style is uniformity. Whence the word uniform. From first inspection to Arlington National Cemetery, soldiers look like those around them: same hat, same boots, identical white grave marker. They are discouraged from looking unique, because that would encourage them to feel unique, to feel like an individual. The problem with individuals is that they think for themselves and of themselves, rather than for and of their unit. They're the lone goldfish on the old Pepperidge Farm bags, swimming the other way. They're a problem. — Mary Roach

In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break. — Walt Whitman

I wouldn't trade growing up on the farm in Yolo (you only live once) County for anything in the world. I prefer the world I grew up in, and not the world I am growing old in. — Lorraine Rominger

In East Sussex, let us say, an old farm sleeps in sun-dapple, its oast-house with its cowls echoing the distant steeple of SS Andrew and Mary, Fletching, where de Montfort had prayed and Gibbon now sleeps out a sceptic's eternity. The Sussex Weald is quiet now, its bows and bowmen that did affright the air at Agincourt long dust. A Chalk Hill Blue spreads peaceable wings upon the hedge. Easter is long sped, yet yellow and lavender yet ornament the land, in betony and dyer's greenweed and mallows. An inquisitive whitethroat, rejoicing in man's long opening of the Wealden country, trills jauntily from atop a wall. — G.M.W. Wemyss

There was no last animal I treated. When young farm lads started to help me over the gate into a field or a pigpen, to make sure the old fellow wouldn't fall, I started to consider retiring. — James Herriot

The way an old dog finds his way back over miles and miles to his home when somebody trues to shove him off on a farm someplace, that is how I find my way back to the library. It's my place, even more than my place is. — Chris Lynch

The snow lay thin and apologetic over the world. That wide grey sweep was the lawn, with the straggling trees of the orchard still dark beyond; the white squares were the roofs of the garage, the old barn, the rabbit hutches, the chicken coops. Further back there were only the flat fields of Dawson's farm, dimly white-striped. All the broad sky was grey, full of more snow that refused to fall. There was no colour anywhere. — Susan Cooper

I will put gold in your room for the journey. And I will let it be whispered about that I have sent you out to a farm to hoe cabbages. Will Elayne be going with you?"
Nynaeve forgot herself enough to stare at the Amyrlin, then hurriedly put her eyes back on her hands. Her knuckles were white on the spit handle. "You scheming old ... Why all the pretense, if you knew? Your sly plots have had us squirming nearly as much as the Black Ajah has. Why?" The Amyrlin's face had tightened, enough to make her force a more respectful tone. "If I may ask, Mother. — Robert Jordan

The old man kept going about how he could never keep her home, how she loved to roam. He said she should have been a sheep in the foothills of Scotland. Now if that wasn't a load of shit I don't know what is. I'll tell you why that sheep roamed. The fences around here was held up with goddamn binder twine and half-assed prayers. That's why. — Susan Juby

We need only to close our eyes and we are back on the Third Line, walking up the lane, through the yard and entering the bright, warm kitchen. We are home again. — Arlene Stafford-Wilson

Everyone knew that Jim's creative coup d'etat came from a suggestion from his great-uncle Max, who lived on a farm in Iowa. According to Jim [Jackers], his uncle had Mexicans running the farm while his days were spent in the farmhouse basement reconstructing a real train car from scratch, which was the only thing he had shown any interest in since the passing of his wife. He traveled to old train yards collecting the parts. When someone asked him at a family function why we was doing it, his answer was so that no one could remove the train car from the basement after he died. When it was pointed out to him that the boxcar could be removed by dismantling it, reversing the process by which he had constructed it, Jim's great uncle replied that no Jackers alive was willing to work that hard at anything. — Joshua Ferris

I grew up on what everybody called a plantation - but believe me, it wasn't a plantation. It was just an old farm. I grew up with a lot of black people working in the fields, and it was during the Depression between 1930 and the war, so we were all poor - black and white. — Sam Phillips

I am here, come closer," the old donkey said with her eyes. "I will mother you. — Katherine Dunn