Whitcomb Quotes & Sayings

As his flesh touched my spirit, the feeling of falling turned into a feeling of flying. I was soaring through time toward him. — Laura Whitcomb

I couldn't take my eyes off him. Like a desert wanderer afraid of mirages, I gazed at my oasis, but he was real. — Laura Whitcomb

The anger of a person who is strong, can always bide its time. — James Whitcomb Riley

Somebody's sent a funny little valentine to me. It's a bunch of baby-roses in a vase of filigree, And hovering above them ... is a fairy cupid tangled in a scarf of poetry. — James Whitcomb Riley

Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these. — James Whitcomb Riley

Perhaps I couldn't tickle the inside of his ear, but I could reach the mysterious curves of his mind. — Laura Whitcomb

Be a sparrow, I told myself. Be silent and fly away. No one will bother you if you disappear. — Laura Whitcomb

To make the world a friendly place, one must show it a friendly face. — James Whitcomb Riley

As I watched that single thread of lightning billow through the water above me like the aurora borealis, I imagined the heavy cord of time stretching away from me in the water like the hard, thick rope on a great ship. — Laura Whitcomb

Obedience is bondage, if God wants to be adored he should make himself more loving. — Laura Whitcomb

He was watching me and when our eyes met, i had no fan to cover my face, no way to hid my feelings. i was desperate for him, and he could see it, all the way in me. — Laura Whitcomb

If you know anything about James Whitcomb Riley, you know that Little Orphan Annie is one of the most fantastic characters who ever lived in America before Charlie Chaplin. — Marguerite Young

Just a wee cot-the crickets chirr-love and the smiling face of her. — James Whitcomb Riley

Your mind will never lose anything forever that's worth keeping. — Laura Whitcomb

A Parting Guest
What delightful hosts are they
Life and Love!
Lingeringly I turn away,
This late hour, yet glad enough
They have not withheld from me
Their high hospitality.
So, with face lit with delight
And all gratitude, I stay
Yet to press their hands and say,
Thanks. - So fine a time! Good night. — James Whitcomb Riley

Those who cry to be young again should think twice before they seal those prayers. — Laura Whitcomb

The jelly - the jam and the marmalade, And the cherry-and quince-'preserves' she made! And the sweet-sour pickles of peach and pear, With cinnamon in 'em, and all things rare! And the more we ate was the more to spare, Out to old Aunt Mary's! Ah! — James Whitcomb Riley

The only one who lived with the chaplain in his clearing in the woods was Corporal Whitcomb, his assistant. Corporal Whitcomb, an atheist, was a disgruntled subordinate who felt he could do the chaplain's job much better than the chaplain was doing it and viewed himself, therefore, as an underprivileged victim of social inequity. — Joseph Heller

Beyond this Door, Heaven waits. — Laura Whitcomb

Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. — Laura Whitcomb

About the library," he whispered. He took out the pencil stub from his pocket and poised it over the page.
"Will you write like Mr. Blake or like yourself?" I inquired.
He wrote and whispered the words aloud as he did. "I am in the library. It smells like old stuff."
"It smells familiar," I suggested. "It smells like words." Because his left side was to me, I couldn't easily take his hand to write.
"Books are boring," James said as he wrote.
"They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered.
He thought about this and then wrote with a smile, "I hate books. — Laura Whitcomb

Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like - Here Mr. Brown paused again. Like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. — Laura Whitcomb

The most essential factor is persistence - the determination never to allow your energy or enthusiasm to be dampened by the discouragement that must inevitably come. — James Whitcomb Riley

He kissed me for a long moment, holding my shoulders, perhaps to keep me from pressing my whole body against his. Then he tried to lift my bag.
"My God," he said. "What happened?"
"I found out one may check out twenty books at a time from the school library. — Laura Whitcomb

It was all real and blazing with detail.
But I was shadow, light as mist, mute as the wallpaper. — Laura Whitcomb

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine. — James Whitcomb Riley

Oh, the world's a curious compound, with its honey and its gall, With its cares and bitter crosses, but a good world after all. And a good God must have made it-leastways, that is what I say, When a hand is on my shoulder in a friendly sort of way. — James Whitcomb Riley

The library smells like old books - a thousand leather doorways into other worlds. I hear silence, like the mind of God. I feel a presence in the empty chair beside me. The librarian watches me suspiciously. But the library is a sacred place, and I sit with the patron saint of readers. Pulsing goddess light moves through me for one moment like a glimpse of eternity instantly forgotten. She is gone. I smell mold, I hear the clock ticking, I see an empty chair. Ask me now and I'll say this is just a place where you can't play music or eat. She's gone. The library sucks. — Laura Whitcomb

It seemed as if humans had lost the ability to make their own fun. The more they were gifted with inventions, the less they needed one another. They didn't sing or play the fiddle at the hearth; they turned on the stereo. They didn't tell stories on the porch; they watched television. — Laura Whitcomb

I would court you with a passion, if things were different. — Laura Whitcomb

I studied a crescent moon hung crooked in a plum purple sky and thought about what it would be like to truly be seen. — Laura Whitcomb

Many worlds, but one God
His power is the sun in every land,
His forgiveness the moon watching over every night,
His love the star in every corner of the heavens. — Laura Whitcomb

O'er folded blooms On swirls of musk, The beetle booms adown the glooms And bumps along the dusk. — James Whitcomb Riley

And the sun had on a crown
Wrought of gilded thistledown,
And a scarf of velvet vapor
And a raveled rainbow gown;
And his tinsel-tangled hair
Tossed and lost upon the air
Was glossier and flossier
Than any anywhere. — James Whitcomb Riley

It seemed as natural as two blades of grass brushing each other in the wind. — Laura Whitcomb

The material was wrinkled, yet even in the low light it remembered the shape of two bodies. — Laura Whitcomb

Someone was looking at me, a disturbing sensation if you're dead. — Laura Whitcomb

I felt my being flutter. each tousled head that came through the door i wanted to be his, but no and on, a dozen boys entered, yet not the one. — Laura Whitcomb

The ripest peach is highest on the tree. — James Whitcomb Riley

The fear of being noticed after a hundred years disappears as I look into a pair of autumn-colored eyes. — Laura Whitcomb

Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strewberries melts
On the vine. — James Whitcomb Riley

Time is a ribbon, a delicate organdy, so thin that you can see through it to the layer of time below and the layer above. Moments overlapping, lying on top of each other. — Laura Whitcomb

You deserve to be happy. What can I do?"
Don't send me away, I thought.
He looked at me again. "What do you want?"
"I want to taste an apple," I said. And your lips, I thought. — Laura Whitcomb

I would court you with passion, if things were different. you'd never get me off your porch swing. — Laura Whitcomb

That I am your heart's secret fills me with song. I wish I could sing of you here in my cage. You are my heart's hidden poem. I reread you, memorize you every moment we're apart. — Laura Whitcomb

This green place in which I stood with James turned slowly around us like a music box. All my memories returning, and all his. I could see and feel each of his days and he mine. Childhood songs, books read, hearts broken, arguments forgiven.The sweetness of these imperfections far outshining the regrets. Our lives overlapped as naturally as two blades of grass brushing together.
My pain forgotten, my clothes dry and clean, I pulled James close to me. As he lifted my chin, I felt no sensation of falling as when I had been Light touching one who is Quick. It wasn't the mere heat of a stolen moment in borrowed flesh. We touched now soul to soul, both of us Light. And when we kissed, the garden rocked, floating upstream. — Laura Whitcomb

As I look around the quiet room, I see a thousand leather covers like doorways into worlds unknown. — Laura Whitcomb

A sea of dreams trapped in a span of pressed pages — Laura Whitcomb

I bless the hoss from hoof to head -
From head to hoof, and tale to mane! -
I bless the hoss, as I have said,
From head to hoof, and back again!
— James Whitcomb Riley

Books are boring," James said as he wrote.
"They line the walls like a thousand leather doorways to be opened into worlds unknown," I offered. — Laura Whitcomb

A Letter from a Muse to Her Poet: Dear sir, I was called away and couldn't bring you, but now I feel haunted. I know that sometimes you felt I was a part of you and that losing me would leave a hole in your heart, but that's not true. I liked to pretend I was the core of your talent, but it wasn't me. Everything you do, the ideas you weave, the lines you write, the words you choose, it was always only you. Please forgive me. I'm sorry that I didn't say goodbye. — Laura Whitcomb

Who bides his time tastes the sweet Of honey in the saltiest tear; And though he fares with slowest feet Joy runs to meet him drawing near. — James Whitcomb Riley

I am not one of the people who believe that the main reason why a chap becomes a bookmaker is because he is too scared to steal and too heavy to become a jockey. — Noel Whitcomb

I would do anything to stay beside you forever. — Laura Whitcomb

Think of him still as the same, I say, He is not dead, he is just - away. — James Whitcomb Riley

He is not dead, he is just - away. — James Whitcomb Riley

Just walk up to your hell & give it a push. Run through it & i'll be waiting on the other side. — Laura Whitcomb

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck. — James Whitcomb Riley

Just walk up to your hell & give it a push. Run through it & i'll be waiting on the other side. — Laura Whitcomb

Perhaps it wasn't that time had frozen but that it was now moving at the pace of infinity. A moment now becomes a century. — Laura Whitcomb

Tell you what I like the best -
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, - some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else! — James Whitcomb Riley

My father said, You are a spirit. Where did you die?
and we were equally alive. I thought to correct him
but he was not in his perfect mind. — Katharine Whitcomb

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago - since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery. — James Whitcomb Riley

I was floating on a river of calm, a leaf on a current. — Laura Whitcomb

One naked star has waded through
The purple shallows of the night,
And faltering as falls the dew
It drips its misty light. — James Whitcomb Riley

O, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, when the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. — James Whitcomb Riley

Boys and girls hid in the library stacks or behind the gym and flew at each other with no promise of love or even kindness, tasting one another in clumsly attempts to steal pleasure before they could be hurt or hated. — Laura Whitcomb

To desperately hope," I whispered
James let out a breath. "To gratefully believe. — Laura Whitcomb

It is no use to grumble and complain; It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain - Why, rain's my choice. — James Whitcomb Riley

I had asked her for help, and she had sent me to the lions. I knew that she was trying to save her little girl, but sometimes mothers with the best intentions kill their daughters all the same. — Laura Whitcomb