Susan Glaspell > Quotes

“We live close together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things-it's all just a different kind of the same thing.”
― Susan Glaspell, Trifles

“For nothing is so hard to hear as that which is half known, and evaded. One never denies so hotly as in denying to one's self what one fears is true, and one never resents so bitterly as in resenting that which one cannot say one has the right to resent.”
― Susan Glaspell

“Be the most you can be, so life will be more because you were.
Susan Glaspell, author ”
― Susan Glaspell

“We are living now.
We shall not live long.
No one should tell us we shall live again.
This is our little while.
This is our chance.”
― Susan Glaspell

“They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of commonplace words.”
― Susan Glaspell

“... and most of all she wondered about the man at the next table whose voice was like... like a dream which she did not know that she had dreamed.”
― Susan Glaspell

“She murmured a 'Thank you', seated herself and her buried hopes in this chair which did not whirl round, and leaned her arms upon a table which did not even dream in mahogany.”
― Susan Glaspell

“Ah, dreams which even thoughts must not touch - so wonderful and sacred they were.”
― Susan Glaspell

“It was all very unmaidenly, of course; but maidenly is a word love and life and desire may crowd from the page.”
― Susan Glaspell

“Nothing here but kitchen things.”
― Susan Glaspell, Trifles

“They wonder if she was going to quilt it or just knot it! (The men laugh, the women look abashed.)”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.”
― Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers

“She moved from that chair to this one over here (pointing to a small chair in the corner)”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively, when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town girls singing in the choir. But that—oh, that was thirty years ago.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“I wonder if she was goin' to quilt it or just knot it?”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“You're convinced that there was nothing important here—nothing that would point to any motive. SHERIFF: Nothing here but kitchen things.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“No, Wright wouldn't like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“Little dictionary sprite, sunshine vendor, and girl to be loved.”
― Susan Glaspell

“She stopped. It was as if her mind tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun—and not finished.”
― Susan Glaspell, A Jury Of Her Peers

“Only cowards and the broken in spirit surrendered the future as payment for the past. Love was the great and beautiful wonder - but surely one should not stay with it in the place where it found one. Why, loving should light the way! Far from engulfing all the rest of life it seemed now that love should open life to one. Whether one kept it or whether one lost it, it failed if it did not send one farther along the way. She had been afraid to think of her love changing because that had seemed to grant that it had failed. But now it seemed that it failed if it did not leave her bigger than it had found her. Her eyes filled in response to the stern beauty of that. Not that one should stay with love in the same place, but rather the meaning of it all was in just this: that it should send one on.”
― Susan Glaspell

“I—I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see the road.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“this is cherries, too. (looking again) I declare I believe that's the only one.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“Come, little one, and let us learn of love.”
― Susan Glaspell

“though I said to Harry that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“But he was a hard man, Mrs Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him—(shivers) Like a raw wind that gets to the bone,”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“We all go through the same things - it's just a different kind of the same thing”
― Susan Glaspell, A Jury of Her Peers

“All the rest of it has been so nice and even. And look at this! It's all over the place! Why, it looks as if she didn't know what she was about! (After she has said this they look at each other, then start to glance back at the door. After an instant MRS HALE has pulled at a knot and ripped the sewing.)”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“I know what stillness is.”
― Susan Glaspell, Trifles

“She—come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself—real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and—fluttery.”
― Susan Glaspell, Plays

“Mrs. Hale had not moved. "If there had been years and years of—nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful—still—after the bird was still.”
― Susan Glaspell, A Jury Of Her Peers