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The Widow of Bath QUOTES

The Widow of Bath QUOTES

1 " You have an evasive hungry mind that must perpetually destroy the road beneath your feet. To hide and to seek at the same time frustrates progress.

[Mrs. Leonard, to Hugh Everton] "

― , The Widow of Bath

2 " ...I don't with my heart believe that a woman can live alone. When she is very young and trying to learn what life is about, when she is full of ideas about Tolstoy or Van Gogh, then she can live alone, or just bounce off people and be happy. But when she is older--just old enough to be aware of mystery and force--then she can't be alone. If everyone had to keep to his separate cell no one would want to live.

[Jan Deverell] "

― , The Widow of Bath

3 " He [Hugh Everton] picked up the pen and wrote: 'The reasonable man feels no passion. No passion of any kind.' He changed 'feels no passion' to 'is swayed by no passion.' Then he crossed out the whole statement. "

― , The Widow of Bath

4 " The judge's manner would have made any man doubt the efficacy of lonely truth. Evidence would be demanded. "

― , The Widow of Bath

5 " ...I...advise you that it is the duty of every citizen to expose and so help to destroy evil.

[Judge Gregory Bath] "

― , The Widow of Bath

6 " The reasonable man went through life without making enemies. If enemies had to be made, it would be better to choose less dangerous ones than Cady. "

― , The Widow of Bath

7 " I write, you know, but not in the usual way. Not for money, Mr. Everton, and not for an audience. The words drop from my heart on to paper. Sometimes they lie there, sometimes they rise again and crush the disorder in my soul.

[Mrs. Leonard] "

― , The Widow of Bath

8 " Bent with infinity my soul swoops high,
But body drags forever down from grace,
Too far the falsely flattened star
Too wild the winds of space.

[poem by Mrs. Leonard] "

― , The Widow of Bath

9 " [Mrs. Leonard:] 'I suppose I started to write poetry because I was unhappy. Happy people have no need of desperate resources. Unhappy people often do not adopt them. But people aware of internal discords must struggle to resolve them.'
...
[Hugh Everton:] 'You think the poet writes to crush his misery? There must be other reasons....'

'There are other reasons. The soul climbs with poetry. But it is the soul that has been battered down by life that feels the need to climb.'
...
'And how have you been battered, Mrs. Leonard, or is it wrong to ask?'

'Deserted. Hated. Betrayed. Rejected,' she cried with sudden force. 'To need love, to deserve love, to win the vilest hatred, to watch the ruin of the soul.... "

― , The Widow of Bath

10 " Life didn't stop, and a mind given too much to thoughts of death would create nothing but its own tomb.

[Hugh Everton] "

― , The Widow of Bath

11 " ...hatred destroyed with the speed of a bonfire in a wooden house.

[Hugh Everton] "

― , The Widow of Bath