Quotes from Katherine Anne Porter

Childhood is the fiery furnace in which we are melted down to essentials and that essential shaped for good.

The real sin against life is to abuse and destroy beauty, even one's own even more, one's own, for that has been put in our care and we are responsible for its well-being.

I was right not to be afraid of any thief but myself, who will end by leaving me nothing.

One of the marks of a gift is to have the courage of it.

Miracles are instantaneous, they cannot be summoned, but come of themselves, usually at unlikely moments and to those who least expect them.

It's a man's world, and you men can have it.

Defeat in this world is no disgrace if you fought well and fought for the right thing.

From The Old Order ] The Grandmother always treated her animal friends as if they were human beings temporarily metamorphosed . . .

Shut your eyes," said Miss Tanner. "Oh no," said Miranda, "for then I see worse things…

Marriage is a public declaration of a man and a woman that they have formed a secret alliance, with the intention to belong to, and share with each other, a mystical estate; mystical exactly in the sense that the real experience cannot be communicated to others, nor explained even to oneself on rational grounds.

The place you are going towards doesn't exist yet, you must build it when you come to the right spot.

From The Jilting of Granny Weatherall ] You waste life when you waste good food.

From Pale Horse, Pale Rider ] The road to death is a long march beset with all evils. . .

No more war, no more plague, only the dazed silence that follows the ceasing of the heavy guns; noiseless houses with the shades drawn, empty streets, the dead cold light of tomorrow. Now there would be time for everything.

The past is never where you think you left it: you are not the same person you were yesterday

without disturbing the radiance which played and darted about the simple and lovely miracle of being two persons named Adam and Miranda, twenty four years old each, alive and on earth at the same moment: 'Are you in the mood for dancing?' and 'I'm always in the mood for dancing, Adam!' but there were things in the way, the day that ended with dancing was a long way to go.

Love must be learned, and learned again; there is no end to it.

The boys ate warily, trying not to be seen or heard, the cornbread sticking, the buttermilk gurgling, as it went down their gullets.

I practiced writing in every possible way that I could. I wrote a pastiche of other people. Just as a pianist runs his scales for ten years before he gives his concert: because when he gives that concert, he can't be thinking of his fingering or of his hands, he has to be thinking of his interpretation. He's thinking of what he's trying to communicate.

Now I must get up and go while they are all quiet. Where are my things? Things have a will of their own in this place and hide where they like. Daylight will strike a sudden blow on the roof startling them all up to their feet; faces will beam asking, Where are you going, What are you doing, What are you thinking, How do you feel, Why do you say such things, What do you mean?

The outright propagandist sets up in me such a fury of opposition I am not apt to care much whether he has got his facts straight or not. He is like someone standing on your toes between you and an open window, describing the view to you. All I ask of him to do is to open the window, stand out of the way, and let me look at the view for myself.

He really did look, Miranda thought, like a fine healthy apple this morning.

Lazarus, come forth. Not unless you bring me my top hat and stick. Stay where you are then, you snob. Not at all. I'm coming forth.

Oh, what is life, she asked herself in desperate seriousness, in those childish unanswerable words, and what shall I do with it?