Elizabeth Yates > Quotes

“When something wonderful happens...it is to be cherished in the heart and in the mind. We must not be afraid of the wonderful things, nor must we let others laugh them away from us. Only thus do we learn how to hold our dreams.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Once in the Year: A Christmas Story

“Once, long years ago, I thought I could set a canoe-load of my people free by breaking the bands at my wrists and killing the white man who held the weapon. I had the strength in my hands to do such a deed and I had the fire within, but I didn't do it."
"What held you back?"
Amos shook his head. "My hand was restrained and I'm glad that it was, for the years between have shown me that it does a man no good to be free until he knows how to live, how to walk in step with God.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“some things are too wonderful even for a child, and freedom's one of them”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“He said little about his dream but he nourished it in his heart as the best place for a dream to grow.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“What right had she to oppose him? Yet it was he who had given her freedom. The word was meaningless unless in its light each one lived up to his highest and his best.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Benj had once said, "A man must have a care to what he puts in his mind, for when he's alone on a hillside and draws it out he'll want treasures to be his company, not regrets.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Mountain Born

“education is”
― Elizabeth Yates, Patterns on the Wall

“But even while Lily was his wife, Amos thought of Ath-mun - now only a faint frail part of memory but still dear. He hoped that in making one black woman free he had made Ath-mun free if she was in need of freedom.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Once it was his hard-earned money that had been used to buy her freedom. How could she speak against his doing something with what was his for another in need?”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Martha looked at her son. So this was the beginning of growing up. This was where the road they had been traveling together first parted.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Mountain Born

“Loveliest of any blossoming thing to her was that green stalk with its white bells. White was the most beautiful color she knew. Yet when she would say that to Amos he would remind her that the brown of the earth from which the flowers came was a good color too.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“There's a fire that burns fast the more fuel goes on it and that's shiftlessness," Violet said stoutly. "Lois is a shiftless woman and money is just so much fuel to her fire.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Let it be, boy, let it be. Can’t you see that it doesn’t matter what the world thinks if you’ve done your work the best you knew how to do?”
― Elizabeth Yates, Patterns on the Wall

“In the churchyard in Jaffrey, New Hampshire are two handsome headstones. The slate weathered well and William Farnsworth's chiseling is clearly readable. They say:

Sacred to the memory of Amos Fortune who was born free in Africa a slave in America he purchased liberty professed Christianity lived reputably and died hopefully
Nov. 17, 1801
Aet. 91

Sacred to the memory of Violate by sale the slave of Amos Fortune by marriage his wife by her fidelity his friend and solace she died his widow
Sept. 13 1802
Aet. 73”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“..for Africa was in a way none of them could explain linked up with heaven and they thought of the two places with the same reverence and ultimate longing.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Always she thought of him as climbing some mountain in his mind, like that great one to the west on which his eyes would dwell so often and from which he seemed to derive something that was even more than strength.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Samuel George looked closely at the freed Negro facing him and he thought that though the man had the look of being familiar with time he bore none of the marks that time could leave. He was well built and well muscled, carrying his head high. There was gray in his hair, but his face was furrowed more by laughter than by years.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Amos Fortune, Free Man

“Did you ever think...that a seed can't start reaching up to the sun until something in it has gone down first into the earth?...I'm not sure that a man can go far if he hasn't first learned to bow before something bigger than he is.”
― Elizabeth Yates, A Place for Peter

“(T)he only way we can prove ourselves worthy of a big trust is by doing well the tasks that belong to each day.”
― Elizabeth Yates, A Place for Peter

“Jared saw with sudden realization that the branches reaching crosswise from stalwart trunks revealed the structure of each tree as a cross. The standards of knights of old had proclaimed the cross, but they were emblems of a single journey to a distant land; while the cross on which each tree was built was a symbol of faith that knew no quailing no matter how long it’s crusading.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Patterns on the Wall

“Getting ready is the biggest part of any job, and the hardest, Jared,” he answered slowly. “Have you ever seen a house a-building—the foundation first, the heavy frame, the ridge pole, and all the thought beforehand? These are the things you do not see when it is finished, but you’re have no house without them. Lay your foundation true and firm, my boy, prepare you work well; the rest all but does itself.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Patterns on the Wall

“Can't you see that it doesn't matter what the world thinks if you've done your work the best you knew how to do?”
― Elizabeth Yates, The Journeyman

“Sometimes there aren't any buts...If we accept what is our life, we grow through it and because of it. That's the way we grow up.”
― Elizabeth Yates, A Place for Peter

“We never know how strong a beam a candle has until we try it in the dark.”
― Elizabeth Yates, A Place for Peter

“He smiled, that gay clean smile of his that I knew so well and that had so often been like a light to me. For one of those brief magic moments of time the years slipped away, and I was back in the tiny old cottage in Sussex that a friend had loaned to us for a few days. It was our wedding night and Bill was saying, "All of me to you, darling, forever."

Yes, that was it: all of each of us to the other. Forever. Whatever.”
― Elizabeth Yates, The Lighted Heart

“Furl your banners and hang you heads,” muttered the wind, “this is no time for tourney. Cast into my four arms those gaudy trappings, for what can cause you joy, O trees, at such a time as this?”
“This rising Sun and the long bright bright day,” the beech cried out.
“The setting Sun and the cool dark night,” the oak said quietly.
“And the rain,” the pine murmured gratefully, “wit it’s gentle fingers finer than my needles.”
The maple was silent. The wind spun around it’s rough gray trunk and sent a shower of gold into the sky.
“O wind,” the maple said, “the side passage of the year from cold to heat, from growing to fruition, from birds nesting to their migrations, is joy enough for us. Let us celebrate it, O wind, before the snow lays it’s white fingers on us and bids us be silent for a time.” The maple spoke wistfully, golden leaves tumbling down the day at every word.
“You speak of memories,” the wind went on. “I who have roamed the earth have seen suffering and cruelty and sorrow. You who stand so still in one place always must believe me.”
“For you, O wind, perhaps it has been a year of sad revelation,” the beech said softly; “but for us it has been a year like all others—rising suns and waxing moons, rains and dews and storms, and the seasons marching in orderly procession around us.”
“Ah,” the wind wailed, clutching at gold and scarlet and green, “how can you hold those banners high when evil still stalks the earth?”
The trees quivered and were silent. The wind raged around them, and his fury brought down cascades of leaves, which he sent hurling over the dry ground.
“We hold our banners high in faith, O wind,” the pine spoke out, lifting its voice so the wind would hear, “emblem for this brief moment of the pledge we have made. We have heard before of these things that you would tell us. The stars have told us many strange tales, and the moon has told us even stranger ones. But we must still be faithful.”
“To what?” moaned the wind, annoyed that his words could not deter the trees from their galliard ways.
“To the everlasting right at the heart of things,” replied the maple. “Evil has but a little day, O wind, and good has a thousand.”
The banners were fading and falling, and the wind laughed to himself that the brave words of the trees must be as thin and fleeting. He stamped and reached high, swept over the ground and leapt aloft, while leaves fell in a gilded shower about him. Cheering at his triumph, he looked through bare branches to the sky, heavy with scudding clouds.
Oak, maple, beech were silenced now. Dark trunks stood rooted in the earth, crossed boughs were held uplifted to the heavens. The pine swayed slowly, it’s heraldic blazon of sable and vert gleaming darkly.
“Look higher, wind, than those bare boughs. Look wider.”
The wind looked, and there, outlined against the sunset gold, on every twig tight buds were tipping: the crimson secret of the oak, the enscaled cradle of the maple, the little sheathed sword of the beech.
“Faith, my friend,” the pine said in a whisper, “faith has the last word always.”
The wind bowed low, low enough to kiss the leaves that swirled around him in a moment of ecstasy; then the wind went on his way down the archway of the year that was luminous with promise.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Patterns on the Wall

“The long, slow, sweet summer that had filled us with peace was drawing to a close. The breezes might still blow warm, but around the edges of our world was a "last-time" feeling. This special kind of loveliness, these rich offerings of pasture and wood lot could not go on forever. I wanted to tuck it all inside me--the wonder of it and our own deep delight--so it would last through the winter and until the year turned again to spring.”
― Elizabeth Yates, The Lighted Heart

“Never is a long time...and none of us lives to see its length.”
― Elizabeth Yates, A Place for Peter

“had”
― Elizabeth Yates, Sarah Whitcher’s Story

“There are many things in the world. If we care for them all a little, we won't feel the hurt too much when we part with one.”
― Elizabeth Yates, Mountain Born