Quotes from Elizabeth Coatsworth

November comes And November goes, With the last red berries And the first white snows. With night coming early, And dawn coming late, And ice in the bucket And frost by the gate. The fires burn And the kettles sing, And earth sinks to rest Until next spring.

The magic of autumn has seized the countryside; now that the sun isn't ripening anything it shines for the sake of the golden age; for the sake of Eden; to please the moon for all I know.

I say that almost everywhere there is beauty enough to fill a person's life if one would only be sensitive to it. but Henry says No: that broken beauty is only a torment, that one must have a whole beauty with man living in relation to it to have a rich civilization and art. . . . Is it because I am a woman that I accept what crumbs I may have, accept the hot-dog stands and amusement parks if I must, if the blue is bright beyond them and the sunset flushes the breasts of sea birds?

We who dance hungry and wild...under a winter's moon

A man must have succeeded in something to be happy, but a woman must be needed.

But people were used to saying "Deerwander" now, without thinking about the name one way or another; they might still be saying "Deerwander" when the village became a city, where children lived who had never seen a deer drinking at a rain pool in a hollow of the granite.

He used to tell me when Mr. Boswell asked Dr. Johnson which was the greatest of the virtues, he answered unhesitatingly, 'Courage,' and when Mr. Boswell asked him why, he said, 'Because, sir, without courage, one will have little opportunity to practice the other virtues.