Quotes from Stephen Crane

A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact that after successfully surmounting one wave you discover that there is another behind it just as important and just as nervously anxious to do something effective in the way of swamping boats

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

They would twist their bodies for a moment and groan, and sleep the dead sleep once more...

A man feared that he might find an assassin; Another that he might find a victim. One was more wise than the other.

It was wrong to do this, said the angel. You should live like a flower, Holding malice like a puppy, Waging war like a lambkin. Not so, quoth the man Who had no fear of spirits; It is only wrong for angels Who can live like the flowers, Holding malice like the puppies, Waging war like the lambkins.

Through his suffering, he peers into the core of things and sees that the judgment of man is thistle-down in the wind.

These men were born to drill and die.             Point for them the virtue of the slaughter,             Make plain to them the excellence of killing             And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

Little Birds of the Night LITTLE birds of the night Aye, they have much to tell Perching there in rows Blinking at me with their serious eyes Recounting of flowers they have seen and loved Of meadows and groves of the distance And pale sands at the foot of the sea And breezes that fly in the leaves. They are vast in experience These little birds that come in the night

He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also

As the landscape changed from brown to green, the army awakened, and began to tremble with eagerness at the noise of rumors.

His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.

All men are. I declare, I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures.

Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels.

I like the people. But, considered generally, they are a collection of ingenious blockheads.

The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers to enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage.

A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree, Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be! That's like us.

The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin.

He reflected that when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some months had been horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to be hurt.

Nature did not seem cruel to him then, nor kind, nor dangerous, nor wise. But she was not interested, completely not interested.

I cannot help vanishing and disappearing and dissolving. It is my foremost trait.

IV Yes, I have a thousand tongues, And nine and nighty-nine lie. Though I strive to use the one, It will make no melody at my will, But is dead in my mouth.

XX A learned man came to me once. He said, I know the way, - come. And I was overjoyed at this. Together we hastened, Soon, too soon, were we Where my eyes were useless, And I knew not the ways of me feet. I clung to the hand of my friend; But at last he cried, I am lost.

Whatever he had learned of himself was of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.

The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One