Quotes from Hal Borland

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

April is a time of wonder, when the spring peepers emerge from hibernation and begin to call, when robins and redwing blackbirds come back north, and when new green life appears. That is one of the greatest of all wonders, the growth of a bud and a leaf from a seed or a root that has lain dormant in the earth all winter.

August... brings katydids, elderberries, blackberry pie, and goldenrod... August is just another thirty-one days of concentrated Summer, but it certainly gets one in condition to appreciate Fall when it comes. Good old August — we'll take it, and some of us will like it.

August is one of the hottest months of the northern year, so hold your breath and see that the fan is in order. It is also one of the longest months, and sometimes it seems even longer.

August thunderstorms are masterpieces of bluster and bombardment. And sometimes August is bone-dry and full of dust, and we would gladly swap the whole of it for one rainy March week end.

The change always comes about mid-August, and it always catches me by surprise. I mean the day when I know that summer is fraying at the edges, that September isn't far off and fall is just over the hill or up the valley.

...the world reveals itself in its true dimensions in the Autumn...

But I insist that hollyhocks were brought to New England for the same reason they were taken to Old England, for the sake of beauty, for the satisfaction of seeing those crinkled silken petals spread their color in midsummer.

Of all the seasons, autumn offers the most to man and requires the least of him.

The cricket is a small, black, ambulatory noise surrounded by a sentimental aura. On occasion it lives in the open fields, but its favorite habitat is behind a couch or under a bookcase in a room where somebody is trying to read.

July is not only a season of the year; it is a season of the mind and memory. Hot days and sultry nights and crashing thunderstorms are a part of July, and to the drone of bees in the clover fields will soon be added the high-pitched sibilance of the cicada. The tang of ripe cherries and the sweetness of sunning hay...

There is a sweetness of May verging on June that no other time in the whole year can equal. And by sweetness is meant more than flower fragrance or honey taste; this is the greater sweetness of understanding and emotion, the glow of pleasure in being.

[S]ome of the rarest days of the year come in September, days when it is comfortably cool but pulsing with life.

September is more than a month, really; it is a season, an achievement in itself. It begins with August's leftovers and it ends with October's preparations...

September comes, and... Summer thins away.

July is the high noon of the northern year... firefly nights and corn growing so fast out in Ioway that you can hear its joints pop in the moonlight.

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life.

And man watches his ingenious clock and his makeshift calendar and ticks off the days, wondering where time goes. Cherishing life, metering it out for himself in bits and pieces, hoping thus to control it.

...a writer is, by trade, a talkative fellow on paper and appreciates an audience.

Words are peculiar that way, full of overtones and memories and semantic subtleties. It's an old game to pick the most beautiful, or the most unpleasant, words in the language. Playing it, some people have chosen "cellar door" as the most beautiful combination of sounds, with liquid consonants and soft vowels.

All walking is discovery. On foot we take the time to see things whole.

There are no idealists in the plant world and no compassion. The rose and the morning glory know no mercy. Bindweed, the morning glory, will quickly choke its competitors to death, and the fencerow rose will just as quietly crowd out any other plant that tried to share its roothold. Idealism and mercy are human terms and human concepts.

The ultimate wisdom which deals with beginnings, remains locked in a seed. There it lies, the simplest fact of the universe and at the same time the one which calls faith rather than reason.

For all his learning or sophistication, man still instinctively reaches towards that force beyond. Only arrogance can deny its existence, and the denial falters in the face of evidence on every hand. In every tuft of grass, in every bird, in every opening bud, there it is.