Jean Webster > Quotes

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“Half of the time I don't know what they're 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.”
― Jean Webster

“I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. 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 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.”
― Jean Webster

“I think that 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.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being pliable.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

You never answered my question and it was very important.

ARE YOU BALD?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!
And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see
it with me. But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Please be thinking about me. I'm quite lonely and I want to be thought about”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.

That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“‎Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail. Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“She was by nature a sunny soul”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“إن معظم الناس لا يعيشون، إنهم يتسابقون و يجرون، إنهم يحاولون الوصول إلى هدف يلوح بعيدا فى الأفق، ومن خلال حرارة الجرى ولهاث الأنفاس يفقدون كل قدرة على الرؤية الصحيحة للأرض الجميلة الهادئة التى يمرقون خلالها؛ ثم بعد ذلك فإن أول شىء يدركونه ويحسون به فعلا هو أنهم بلغوا أرذل العمر و أن التعب قد أضناهم ولا يهم بعد ذلك إذا كانوا قد بلغوا أهدافهم أم لا.
إننى قررت أن أجلس و أتمهل فى الطريق و أنهمك فى جمع وتكويم نتف من المتع الصغيرة”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The more I study men, the more I realize that they are nothing in the world but boys grown too big to be spankable.”
― Jean Webster, Dear Enemy

“It isn't the big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones.”
― Jean Webster

“... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. 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 signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Thank heaven I don't inherit God from anybody! I am free to make mine up as I wish Him. He's kind and sympathetic and imaginative and forgiving and understanding - and He has a sense of humor.”
― Jean Webster

“I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change every three days. "Wuthering Heights." Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. She had never known any men in her life; how could she imagine a man like Heathcliff?

I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier Asylum - I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“This is your heart. Keep it locked until the chap turns up who has the key.”
― Jean Webster, Just Patty

“I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I
shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. ~Jershua Abbott”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs