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Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1) QUOTES

Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1) QUOTES

1 " The world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

2 " ... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now -- I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

3 " Getting an education is an awfully wearing process! "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

4 " It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

5 " I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

6 " But what's the use of arguing with a man? You belong, Mr. Smith, to a sex devoid of a sense of logic. To bring a man into line, there are just two methods: one must either coax or be disagreeable. I scorn to coax men for what I wish. Therefore, I must be disagreeable. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

7 " You know, Daddy, I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It make them kind and sympathetic and understanding. It ought to be cultivated in children. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

8 " I don't believe it pays to be a great author. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

9 " Isn't it fun to work— or don't you ever do it? It's especially fun when your kind of work is the thing you'd rather do more than anything else in the world. I've been writing as fast as my pen would go every day this summer, and my only quarrel with life is that the days aren't long enough to write all the beautiful and valuable and entertaining thoughts I'm thinking. I've finished the second draft of my book and am going to begin the third tomorrow morning at half-past seven. It's the sweetest book you ever saw— it is, truly. I think of nothing else. I can barely wait in the morning to dress and eat before beginning; then I write and write and write till suddenly I'm so tired that I'm limp all over. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

10 " This new book is going to get itself finished— and published! You see if it doesn't. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

11 " Eleven pages— this is a letter! Have courage. I'm going to stop. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

12 " I came up with a pen and tablet hoping to write an immortal short story, but I've been having a dreadful time with my heroine— I CAN'T make her behave as I want her to behave; so I've abandoned her for the moment, and am writing to you. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

13 " I saw a street car conductor today with one brown eye and one blue. Wouldn't he make a nice villain for a detective story? "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

14 " Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

15 " This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep.

I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia and Leonora Fenton - and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sallie stayed to help wash the dishes. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

16 " Julia and Sallie and I all had new dresses. Do you want to hear about them? Julia's was cream satin and gold embroidery and she wore purple orchids. It was a DREAM and came from Paris, and cost a million dollars. Sallie's "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

17 " I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I
shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

18 " It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

19 " Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)

20 " It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity. "

― Jean Webster , Daddy-Long-Legs (Daddy-Long-Legs, #1)