Streeter Quotes & Sayings

I know, for me, that I have always been very conscious of how I dress when I go to the studio, I'm very conscious of my body language when I'm working - a lot of times, I'm the only female in the room. It's a very male-dominated profession. I'm always around guys. Guys are going to try you all day, and they're going to flirt all day. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I've learned over the years to appreciate God's timing, and you can't rush things; it's gonna happen exactly when it's supposed to. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I swear I pick up little gems from every artist that I work with. That's why I'm so appreciative that I've been able to be a songwriter first. — Sevyn Streeter

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

Honestly, I think dating is hard. Period. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I'm a perfectionist to a default. I will drive you crazy sometimes. When I'm recording, I will try something a trillion times to get it right. — Sevyn Streeter

It is better to remember our love as it was in the springtime. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I think when you commit to somebody, and you take them off the market, right, I think it is your job as a woman or as a man to ... I don't think you should ever say no. I'm talking about if you're tired or somebody's like 'I'm tired.' No, because at the end of the day you took that person off of the market. They can't go and be with someone else because they're with you. So, don't you ever say no. — Sevyn Streeter

I have a hard time getting over an ex. Getting over an ex is just hard, period. — Sevyn Streeter

Many hands were willing to perform the last tender ministrations. It is characteristic of the small town and rural districts. Sympathy there takes concrete form. It becomes cakes and cinnamon rolls and sitting up nights, husking corn and washing dishes and closing the eyes of the neighboring dead. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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

One thing that was really dope for me was that my dad had a '78 Corvette, '78 or '76 Corvette all my life. It always needed to be fixed up. I remember it's just been sitting in the driveway for years, and I got it fixed from top to bottom for his birthday. — Sevyn Streeter

Take life one day at a time because every day is a different day with new challenges. — Penny Streeter

For me to give my advice to somebody who's thinking about going back to an ex or keeps on going back to their ex, you'll know when you're done. You'll know when you're finished with that person. You'll know when you're over them and ready to move, but nobody else can tell you that. — Sevyn Streeter

I'm extremely close to my mother. — Sevyn Streeter

Music is emotional. Your job is to make people feel something. The best way to do that is to sing and speak from something they've personally been through. That's where I write from. — Sevyn Streeter

It was true, she thought, that the big things awe us but the little things touch us. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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 want to take it back," Streeter whispered. Elvid favored him with a stony smile that revealed a jutting ring of cannibal teeth. "You can't," he said. That was in August of 2001, less than a month before the fall of the Towers. — Shane Jiraiya Cummings

She thought of her younger days, - the gleam which seemed always ahead, - of the vague allure which accomplishing something in the arts had always held for her. And now she was nearly fifty and she was not to know the fruition of any of those hopes.
"Oh Will, I am so disappointed," she said to that invisible comrade who was only spirit and memory. "I can only feel those things, - not do them."
Isn't motherhood, itself, an accomplishment?
She knew that she made her own answer, and yet it gave her a sense of satisfaction and peace. Will might said it. It sounded like him.
"But I've made so many mistakes ... Will ... even in that."
You are a good mother, Abbie-girl."
Yes, it gave her a sense of peace and comfort. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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

I feel like R&B is really based off of emotion and truth. R&B is a conversation. — Sevyn Streeter

A lot of women want to be married and have kids one day, but before we get there, it's so important to establish who you are, find yourself, and live in that for a minute before you become somebody's wife and mother. — Sevyn Streeter

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

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

I wanna be able to stand on the stage and hold out the mic and people sing all the lyrics to my song. — Sevyn Streeter

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

...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

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

And now, she felt the presence of Grandmother Deal, as always--that same unexplainable presence of the woman who had mothered them all, whose love for her children and her children's children was so deep that after all the years it still seemed a tangible thing, delicate and rare, like the faint subtle odor of a fine perfume.

Could such things be, she wondered vaguely...? Could the loved dead come back? At a time like this, was the memory of them so keen to one sensitive like herself, that they only seemed to return and mingle with those to whom they had been devoted? Or was there in some way unknown to humans, a definite magical blending of these imperishable spirits with the mortal spirits of those they had so deeply loved? — Bess Streeter Aldrich

You should find the dopest producer in your area, and that producer is always going to want songs written to his beat. — Sevyn Streeter

...Laura knew the price of motherhood to be pain and responsibility; the reward, love and pride. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Humans are queer. A man, living and well, is ignored or criticized. Dying or dead, he is noticed and praised. Death sheds a temporary glamour over the poorest soul. It is as though in dying, he has accomplished something which life never gave him. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

The greatest antidote in the world for grief is work, and the necessity of work. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I went back to my ex a couple of times, and regardless of how many times you hear from your parents or your best friends or whoever that 'Oh, you should let it go and be over it and let him go. Move past it and find somebody new.' Regardless of the advice that you're given, you kind of have to do whatever makes you happy. — Sevyn Streeter

Home was something besides so much lumber and plaster. You built your thoughts into the frame work. You planted a little of your heart with the trees and the shrubbery. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Abbie Deal went happily about her work, one baby in her arms and the other at her skirts, courage her lode-star and love her guide, - a song upon her lips and a lantern in her hand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Not all clever words are true ... And inversely most things that are true are not clever. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

And standing there ... old Abbie Deal began to cry. They are the most painful tears in the world ... the tears of the aged ... for they come from dried beds where the emotions have long burned low. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Every year of my life, my dad has sent me a Valentine's Day gift. Whether I was in the same house or across the country, he always sent something. — Sevyn Streeter

You could not stop the winds and you could not stop Time. It went on and on,-and on. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Regardless of the popular literary trend of the times, write the thing which lies close to your heart. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty ... and maybe after that sorrow. You wouldn't think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes ... I think that is what love is to a woman ... a lantern in her hand. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Life was meant to be warm and happy and lovely. Life was meant to be a sweet unhampered thing, joyful and gay. It should have everything in it,--wealth and travel and happiness and a career and friends and Allen. And if it couldn't have them all . . . oh, it ought to have Allen. It ought, anyway, to have Allen.... It had been as though in that one brief bitter-sweet moment, she had been swept again into some haven, had become the center of some great plan. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

Christmas Eve was a night of song that wrapped itself about you like a shawl. But it warmed more than your body. It warmed your heart ... filled it, too, with melody that would last forever. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I ... you mean me?"
"Quite naturally, when I said, 'What about you, yourself,' I meant
you. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

I feel like everyone has a preference. You have women who don't like shorter guys. You have women who like taller guys. You have women who like heavier men. You have women who like smaller men. It's the same thing with men. You have men who prefer lighter women and men who prefer darker women. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I went on tour with Beyonce when I was in Rich Girl and that was ... something I will tell my kids for years and years and years to come. That's like saying, 'I toured with Michael Jackson.' That will be something I will forever cherish. — Sevyn Streeter

Things last so much longer than people. — Bess Streeter Aldrich

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

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

I think in my life I have so many things that changed so much with work and my career, and I don't really get to plan out a lot of my days. So when I have something that's familiar - just something that's there - I don't really like to switch it up. — Sevyn Streeter

People inspire me to write, the good ones and the bad ones. — Sevyn Streeter

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

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

If I'm writing for a particular artist, I definitely think about their past records, pay attention to the type of tempos that they like. If I have the privilege of actually being in the session with the artist, I just like to have a conversation with them. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I did 'Showtime at the Apollo' when I was 10, and it was the first time that I'd ever performed on TV, and it felt great. — Sevyn Streeter

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

No theory of the universe can be satisfactory which does not adequately account for the phenomena of life, especially in that richest form which finds expression in human personality. — Burnett Hillman Streeter

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

I was into Nickelback before they were cool. — Streeter Seidell

I've had the honor to be in sessions with great artists. — Sevyn Streeter

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

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

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

My label, my team and I are always looking to get involved with positive things. — Sevyn Streeter

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

STREETER: Let's just not argue. You can call me stupid, all right. I can call you a coward, all right. It's just I believe one thing, you believe something else. I think the world's got an outside chance, you believe it hasn't. That's all. — Robert Ardrey

This is why i hate social media. It gives a voice to people who dont (sic) deserve one. — Gary Streeter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Writing for yourself is like exposing your diary. It can be a little embarrassing at times, but if it helps somebody get through the day just by hearing a song, it's well worth it. — Sevyn Streeter

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

I think men and women will both agree that one of the perks of being single on Valentine's Day is that you get to keep your money in your pocket. — Sevyn Streeter

They privatize the profits and socialize the losses, so whichever way the wheel spins, they win." Quote from a millionaire Wall-Streeter in Hitchhiking with Larry David by Paul Samule Dolman. — Paul Dolman

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

Cecil reached for Dave, but Dave stepped back. "Dave, why are you doing this? You're not getting paid. Lovejoy called you off the case. You want the truth? You're compulsive. You can't leave it alone. You're like Adam Streeter, you know that? You live for danger."
"I live for justice," Dave said.
"Justice is a dream," Cecil scoffed, "a romantic ideal. Who the fuck gets justice in this life?( ... ) — Joseph Hansen

For an acquisitive Wall Streeter, the money saved by choosing a practical car can be put toward the cost of some pricier means of mobility - like a plane. — Michael Shnayerson

I've been singing forever; I grew up singing in church. — Sevyn Streeter

...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

To hear an artist be transparent is one of the greatest things they could ever do for their fans. I love that, when I see my fans on the road we have real conversations and it's not even that I do it as some big ploy to have album sales. I do it because it's important for them to understand who I am. So, whatever backlash comes along with me being transparent, there's nothing I can do about it. — Sevyn Streeter

I haven't always been good at flirting, but I've learned that flirting is all about confidence. I don't think it's about being sexy at all; it's just about having enough confidence to walk up to somebody and have a conversation with them. — Sevyn Streeter

Conversation without you trying to be sexy can still come off as very sexy. Trust me! — Sevyn Streeter

Indeed he did, and we never cease wanting what we want, whether it's good for us or not. Wouldn't you say so, Mr. Streeter? — Stephen King

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