Quotes from Sarah Orne Jewett

I saw William Blackett's escaping sail already far from land, and Captain Littlepage was sitting behind his closed window as I passed by, watching for some one who never came. I tried to speak to him, but he did not see me. There was a patient look on the old man's face, as if the world were a great mistake and he had nobody with whom to speak his own language or find companionship.

Her hospitality was something exquisite; she had the gift which so many women lack, of being able to make themselves and their houses belong entirely to a guest's pleasure,--that charming surrender for the moment of themselves and whatever belongs to them, so that they make a part of one's own life that can never be forgotten.

A community narrows down and grows dreadful ignorant when it is shut up to its own affairs, and gets no knowledge of the outside world except from a cheap, unprincipled paper.

When one really knows a village like this and its surroundings, it is like becoming acquainted with a single person. The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.

I now remembered that Mrs. Todd had told me one day that Captain Littlepage had overset his mind with too much reading.

So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

When I went in again the little house had suddenly grown lonely, and my room looked empty as it had the day I came. I and all my belongings had died out of it, and I knew how it would seem when Mrs. Todd came back and found her lodger gone. So we die before our own eyes; so we see some chapters of our lives come to their natural end.

We are always looking forward to the passing and ending of winter, but when summer is here it seems as if summer must always last. As I went across the fields that day, I found myself half lamenting that the world must fade again, even that the best of her budding and bloom was only a preparation for another spring-time, for an awakening beyond the coming winter's sleep.

There is all the pleasure that one can have in golddigging in finding one's hopes satisfied in the riches of a good hill of potatoes.

Conformity is the inspiration of much second-rate virtue.

This is a very small world; we are all within hail of each other. I dare say when we get to Heaven there will not be a stranger to make friends with.

The bright flower was like a face. Somehow, the beauty and life of it were surprising in the plain room, like a gay little child who might suddenly appear in a doorway.

I have come to know what it is to have patience, but I have lost my hope.

What has made this nation great? Not its heroes but its households.

A harbor even if it is a little harbor is a good thing.... It takes something from the world and has something to give in return.

Who was it said that you never get to a place until a day after you come, nor leave it until a day after you go?

The process of falling in love at first sight is as final as it is swift in such a case, but the growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.

Love isn't blind; it's only love that sees!

The growth of true friendship may be a lifelong affair.

T'ain't worthwhile to wear a day all out before it comes.

It seems to me like stealing, for men and women to live in the world and do nothing to make it better.

The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man.

God would not give us the same talent if what were right for men were wrong for women.

There's more women likes to be loved than there is of those that loves.