Quotes from Elizabeth Enright

Never plan a picnic' Father said. 'Plan a dinner, yes, or a house, or a budget, or an appointment with the dentist, but never, never plan a picnic.

October sunshine bathed the park with such a melting light that it had the dimmed impressive look of a landscape by an old master.

Did you know that a bee dies after he stings you? And that there's a star called Aldebaran? And that around the tenth of August, any year, you can look up in the sky at night and see dozens and dozens of shooting stars?

Maybe we benefit from the providence of others more often than we know.

Self-pity is the hens' besetting sin," remarked Mr. Payton. "Foolish fowl. How they came to achieve anything as perfect as the egg I do not know! I cannot fathom.

Someday she planned to paint he ceiling: Blue, with gold stars on it, whole constellations, and a section of the Milky Way.

Each day the sun shone, the birds lingered, though the trees were turning, purely out of habit, and their rose and yellow and rust looked strange and beautiful above the brilliant green grass.

Already he knew that to overdo a thing is to destroy it.

Like ghosts the children walked across the lawn on their bare feet. The moon was full. Above the damp grass hung a veil of mist, luminous with moonlight and spangled with fireflies. There was no wind, and the sound of the brook was very distinct, tinkling, splashing, running softly. It made Mona think of an ancient fountain, shaped like a shell, covered with moss, and set in a secluded garden. Something she half remembered, or imagined.

Each golden day was cherished to the full, for one had the feeling that each must be the last. Tomorrow it would be winter.

No matter how old a person gets, he's never old in spring!

Summer was over in twenty minutes that day. Finished. At four o'clock in the afternoon the roses were quiet on their stems, full-blown, fulfilled; the water in the pool was warm; the leaves on the trees quiet, too, and green. The cat lay with his belly to the sun, steeped in heat.

This was the hour she loved; this lonely hour when the others were distant in sleep and she was alone in the house; when she could cry if she wanted to, or curse, or sit at her work and think or remember and no longer be anything but herself. There is a latitude to late night, when one's thoughts dare to travel, and the emotions are free, no longer frightened by confinement.

Mr. Payton was at work on his pipe again, lighting and coaxing it. "They need constant attention, pipes, like babies and guinea hens," he said, and sucked in the smoke.

Good things must have comparers, I suppose,' said Portia, 'Or how would we knowhow good they are?

By lunchtime the valley was lightly coated, like a cake with confectioner's sugar...there was white fur on the antlers of the iron deer and on the melancholy boughs of the Norway spruce.

The dishes," [Garnet] said. "Oh, let them stand for once!" cried Mrs. Linden grandly, "we can do them when we come home. This is an important day." "You're nice," said Garnet, and gave her mother a hug.

Garnet was very happy. She was so happy, for no especial reason, that she felt as if she must move carefully so she wouldn't jar or shake the feeling of happiness.

This silence was woven of many sounds: of long soft owl calls, of tree frogs' voices, of invisible wings fluttering past a window, and above all the delicate, ceaseless breathing of the woods.

churning, baking, spinning and soap-making. In summer

In the deep sky where there had been a sun, we saw a ring of white silver; a smoking ring, and all the smokes were silver, too; gauzy, fuming, curling, unbelievable. And who had ever seen the sky this color! Not in the earliest morning or at twilight, never before had we seen or dreamed this strange immortal blue in which a few large stars now sparkled as though for the first time in creation.

Never plan a picnic' Father said. 'Plan a dinner, yes, or a house, or a budget, or an appointment with the dentist, but never, never plan a picnic.