Quotes from Stephen Crane

It was surprising that Nature had gone tranquilly on with her golden process in the midst of so much devilment.

The correspondent wondered ingenuously how in the name of all that was sane could there be people who thought it amusing to row a boat. It was not an amusement; it was a diabolical punishment, and even a genius of mental aberrations could never conclude that it was anything but a horror to the muscles and a crime against the back.

There were many who went in huddled procession, They knew not wither, But, at any rate, success or calamity Would attend all in equality. There was one who sought a new road, He went into direful thickets, And ultimately he died thus, alone; But they said he had courage.

Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.

The maddened four men followed frantically, for it is better to be in the presence of the awful than only within hearing. (The Black Dog)

The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.

Once upon a time there was a beautiful Indian maiden, of course.

Others may do as they please, but as for me,' he concluded ferociously, 'I shall never disclose to anybody that an acrobat, a trained bear of the magazines, a juggler of comic paragraphs, is not a priceless pearl of art and philosophy.

The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.

It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.

He was submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this conflagration.

If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant -- What then?

She thinks my name is Freddie, you know, but of course it ain't. I always tell these people some name like that, because if they got onto your right name they might use it sometime. Understand?

XXVI There was set before me a mighty hill, And long days I climbed Through regions of snow. When I had before me the summit-view, It seemed my labor Had been to see gardens Lying at impossible distances.

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved his respectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a soul. For how was he to know that there was a soul before him that needed saving?

Held his heart in his hands, And ate of it. I said: Is it good, friend? It is bitter - bitter, he answered; But I like it Because it is bitter, And because it is my heart.

They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles.

They were going to look at war, the red animal—war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.

It is perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.

Once he thought he had concluded that it would be better to get killed directly and end his troubles. Regarding death thus out of the corner of his eye, he conceived it to be nothing but rest, and he was filled with a momentary astonishment that he should have made an extraordinary commotion over the mere matter of getting killed.

Ma, I'm going to enlist.

This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.

I heard thee laugh, And in this merriment I defined the measure of my pain; I knew that I was alone, Alone with love, Poor shivering love, And he, little sprite, Came to watch with me, And at midnight We were like two creatures by a dead camp-fire.

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no brick and no temples.