Quotes from Jean Webster

Where is the fun of living if you are going to make yourself a slave to all sorts of petty rules?" asked Patty wearily.

Hal paling menyenangkan di dunia adalah berlari dari hal-hal yang seharusnya kau kerjakan - Patty.

The mere idea that you are not in a place for the rest of your life gives you an awfully unstable feeling. That's why trial marriages would never work. You've got to feel you're in a thing irrevocably and forever in order to buckle down and really put your whole mind into making it a success.

If you just want a thing hard enough and keep on trying, you do get it in the end.

it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!

When you get accustomed to people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, it does leave an awfully empty, gnawing sort of sensation.

But now—I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the sign-boards that can fall on your head, or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.

You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that everyone but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language.

the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.

Just such a letter as you would write to your parents if they were living. 'These

Most people don't live; they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not.

Estoy pasando por un cambio total de mi carácter. Odio la inestabilidad. Me asusta la idea de ver mi vida desorganizada.

Do you think a woman of that age is attractive if she deals in subterfuges and evasions? Character," she added solemnly, "is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early.

She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be amused.

I'm getting old... Soon I'll be thirty, and then forty, and then fifty; and do you think any one will love me then if I deal in subterfuges and evasions? Character, my dear girls, is a plant of slow growth, and the seeds must be planted early.

but you won't mind, will you, if I tell you that I have a very much more special feeling for another man? You can probably guess without much trouble who he is. I suspect that my letters have been very full of Master Jervie for a very long time. I

Her eyes wandered back to the campus again, and she suddenly grew sober as the thought swept over her that in a few weeks more it would be hers no longer. This happy, irresponsible community life, which had come to be the only natural way of living, was suddenly at an end.

Examinations are even entertaining, if you know the right answers.

There's never any use bothering to tell people the truth when you don't like them. The reason Conny and Pris and I get on so well together, is because we always tell each other the exact truth about our faults. Then we have a chance to correct them—that's what makes us so nice," she added modestly.

I am beginning to feel at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world--as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.

When a couple of adopting parents are choosing a daughter, I stand by with my heart in my mouth, feeling as though I were assisting in the inscrutable designs of Fate. Such a little thing turns the balance! The child smiles, and a loving home is hers for life; she sneezes, and it passes her by forever.

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs, I meant to write to you before and thank you for your Christmas cheque, but life in the McBride household is very absorbing, and I don't seem able to find two consecutive minutes to spend at a desk. I

Saya memang suka pada topi-topi serta benda-benda yang cantik, tapi saya tidak boleh menggadaikan masa depan saya untuk membeli barang-barang seperti itu.

Yang terpenting bukanlah kenikmatan-kenikmatan berskala besar, melainkan bagaimana kita mampu mengeksploitasi yang kecil-kecil secara maksimal.