Susan Coolidge > Quotes

“She read all sorts of things: travels, and sermons, and old magazines. Nothing was so dull that she couldn't get through with it. Anything really interesting absorbed her so that she never knew what was going on about her. The little girls to whose houses she went visiting had found this out, and always hid away their story-books when she was expected to tea. If they didn't do this, she was sure to pick one up and plunge in, and then it was no use to call her, or tug at her dress, for she neither saw nor heard anything more, till it was time to go home.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“To-morrow I will begin," thought Katy, as she dropped asleep that night. How often we all do so! And what a pity it is that when morning comes and to-morrow is to-day, we so frequently wake up feeling quite differently; careless or impatient, and not a bit inclined to do the fine things we planned overnight.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“I mean to do something grand. I don't know what, yet; but when I'm grown up I shall find out.Perhaps,it will be rowing out in boats, and saving peoples' lives,like that girl in the book. Or perhaps I shall go and nurse in the hospital, like Miss Nightingale. Or else I'll head a crusade and ride on a white horse, with armor and a helmet on my head, and carry a sacred flag. Or if I don't do that, I'll paint pictures,or sing, or scalp – sculp – what is it? you know – make figures in marble. Anyhow it shall be something.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“Imogen was a bright girl naturally, but she had read so many novels that her brain was completely turned.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“There is a saving grace in truth which helps truth-tellers through the worst of their troubles, and Katy found this out now.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“It is a curious fact, and makes life very interesting, that, generally speaking, none of us have any expectation that things are going to happen till the very moment when they do happen. We wake up some morning with no idea that a great happiness is at hand, and before night it has come, and all the world is changed for us; or we wake bright and cheerful, with never a guess that clouds of sorrow are lowering in our sky, to put all the sunshine out for a while, and before noon all is dark. Nothing whispers of either the joy or the grief. No instinct bids us to delay or to hasten the opening of the letter or telegram, or the lifting of the latch of the door at which stands the messenger of good or ill.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next

“But you must recollect that every time you forget, and are impatient or selfish, you chill them and drive them farther away. They are loving little things, and are so sorry for you now, that nothing you do makes them angry. But by and by they will get used to having you sick, and if you haven't won them as friends, they will grow away from you as they get older.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“IN SCHOOL.

"I used to go to a bright school
Where Youth and Frolic taught in turn;
But idle scholar that I was,
I liked to play, I would not learn;
So the Great Teacher did ordain
That I should try the School of Pain.

"One of the infant class I am
With little, easy lessons, set
In a great book; the higher class
Have harder ones than I, and yet
I find mine hard, and can't restrain
My tears while studying thus with Pain.

"There are two Teachers in the school,
One has a gentle voice and low,
And smiles upon her scholars, as
She softly passes to and fro.
Her name is Love; 'tis very plain
She shuns the sharper teacher, Pain.

"Or so I sometimes think; and then,
At other times, they meet and kiss,
And look so strangely like, that I
Am puzzled to tell how it is,
Or whence the change which makes it vain
To guess if it be--Love or Pain.

"They tell me if I study well,
And learn my lessons, I shall be
Moved upward to that higher class
Where dear Love teaches constantly;
And I work hard, in hopes to gain
Reward, and get away from Pain.

"Yet Pain is sometimes kind, and helps
Me on when I am very dull;
I thank him often in my heart;
But Love is far more beautiful;
Under her tender, gentle reign
I must learn faster than of Pain.

"So I will do my very best,
Nor chide the clock, nor call it slow;
That when the Teacher calls me up
To see if I am fit to go,
I may to Love's high class attain,
And bid a sweet good-by to Pain.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“though she's so frank, I can't guess whether or not she ever thinks about them. She likes you, however, I am sure of that. But, Ned, it will not be wise to say anything to her yet." "Not say anything? Why not?" "No. Recollect that it is only a little while since she looked upon you as the admirer of another girl, and a girl she doesn't like very much, though they are cousins. You must give her time to get over that impression. Wait awhile; that's my advice, Ned." "I'll wait any time if only she will say yes in the end. But it's hard to go away without a word of hope, and it's more like a man to speak out, it seems to me." "It's too soon," persisted his sister. "You don't want her to think you a fickle fellow, falling in love with a fresh girl every time you go into port, and falling out again when the ship sails. Sailors have a bad reputation for that sort of thing. No woman cares to win a man like that." "Great Scott! I should think not! Do you mean to say that is the way my conduct appears to her, Polly ?" "No, I don't mean just that; but wait, dear Ned, I am sure it is better.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next

“It was the perfection of a Venice evening, with silver waves lapsing and lulling under a rose and opal sky; and the sense that it was their last row on those enchanted waters made every moment seem doubly precious. I cannot tell you exactly what it was that Ned Worthington said to Katy during that row, or why it took so long to say it that they did not get in till after the sun was set, and the stars had come out to peep at their bright, glinting faces, reflected in the Grand Canal. In fact, no one can tell; for no one overheard, except Giacomo, the brown yellow-jacketed gondolier, and as he did not understand a word of English he could not repeat the conversation. Venetian boatmen, however, know pretty well what it means when a gentleman and lady, both young, find so much to say in low tones to each other under the gondola hood, and are so long about giving the order to return; and Giacomo, deeply sympathetic, rowed as softly and made himself as imperceptible as he could,—a display of tact which merited the big silver piece with which Lieutenant Worthington “crossed his palm” on landing.”
― Susan Coolidge, The Complete Katy Carr Collection

“The children hadn't any Mamma. She had died when Phil was a baby, four years before my story began. Katy could remember her pretty well; to the rest she was but a sad, sweet name, spoken on Sunday, and at prayer-times, or when Papa was especially gentle and solemn. In place of this Mamma, whom they recollected so dimly, there was Aunt Izzie, Papa's sister, who came to take care of them when Mamma went away on that long journey, from which, for so many months, the little ones kept hoping she might return. Aunt Izzie was a small woman, sharp-faced and thin, rather old-looking, and very neat and particular about everything. She meant to be kind to the children, but they puzzled her much, because they were not a bit like herself when she was a child. Aunt Izzie had been a gentle, tidy little thing, who loved to sit as Curly Locks did, sewing long seams in the parlor, and to have her head patted by older people, and be told that she was a good girl; whereas Katy tore her dress every day, hated sewing, and didn't care a button about being called "good," while Clover and Elsie shied off like restless ponies when any one tried to pat their heads. It was very perplexing to Aunt Izzie, and she found it hard to quite forgive the children for being so "unaccountable," and so little like the good boys and girls in Sunday-school memoirs, who were the young people she liked best, and understood most about.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“I was sitting in the meadows one day, not long ago, at a place where there was a small brook. It was a hot day. The sky was very blue, and white clouds, like great swans, went floating over it to and fro. Just opposite me was a clump of green rushes, with dark velvety spikes, and among them one single tall, red cardinal flower, which was bending over the brook as if to see its own beautiful face in the water. But the cardinal did not seem to be vain.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“remembering that the husband is the head of the wife,”
― Susan Coolidge, Clover

“You never know what Nature may do. She has ways of her own of getting even with people,” remarked her friend, solemnly.”
― Susan Coolidge, The Complete Katy Carr Collection

“Day after day she asked Papa with quivering lip: "Mayn't I get up and go down stairs this morning?" And”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“tired as”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next

“You can make your room such a delightful place that they will want to come to you...she is always on hand. Everybody who wants her knows just where to go. If people love her, she gets naturally to be the heart of the house. Once make the little ones feel that your room is the place of all the others to come to when they are tired, or happy, or grieved, or sorry about anything and that the Katy who lives there is sure to give them a loving reception and the battle is won. For you know we never do people good by lecturing.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“The parting at Burnet was not a happy one.”
― Susan Coolidge, Clover

“She firmly believed in the doctrine of a certain wise man of our own day who says that to push your work before you is easy enough, but to pull it after you is very hard indeed. All”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Series: 5 Classic Children's Novels

“turnovers to carry. The boys gave three cheers for her when”
― Susan Coolidge, The Katy Chronicles (Annotated): What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School & What Katy Did Next

“honest and durable work put upon it by”
― Susan Coolidge, In the High Valley

“It was one of the nights which do not come often in a lifetime, and which people never forget. The darkness seems full of meaning; the hush, full of sound. God is beyond, holding the sunrise in his right hand, holding the sun of our earthly hopes as well; will it dawn in sorrow or in joy? We dare not ask; we can only wait.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Next

“I will do it tomorrow. How often we all do so and what a pity it is that when morning comes and tomorrow is today we so frequently wake up feeling quite differently. Careless or impatient and not a bit inclined to do the fine things we planned to do overnight.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“If little girls will forget to be little, and take it upon them to become young ladies, they must bear the consequences, one of which is, that we can follow their fortunes no longer.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did at School

“Is Papa crying, do you suppose?' whispered John.”
― Susan Coolidge, Clover

“Perhaps you think that I am romancing; but I am not a bit. Every word I say is perfectly true, only I have not made the colors half bright or the things half beautiful enough. Colorado is the most beautiful place in the world. [N.B.—Clover had seen but a limited portion of the world so far.] I only wish you could all come out to observe for yourselves that I am not fibbing, though it sounds like it!"            ”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did Series: 5 Classic Children's Novels

“Katy came to meet them as they entered. Not on her feet: that, alas! was still only a far-off possibility; but in a chair with large wheels, with which she was rolling herself across the room.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,
For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of the rider the battle was lost,
For the want of the battle the kingdom was lost,
⁠And all for want of a horse-shoe nail.”
― Susan Coolidge , What Katy Did

“Every morn is the world made new.
You who are weary of sorrow and sinning,
Here is a beautiful hope for you,—
A hope for me and a hope for you.

All the past things are past and over;
The tasks are done and the tears are shed.
Yesterday’s errors let yesterday cover;
Yesterday’s wounds, which smarted and bled,
Are healed with the healing which night has shed.

Yesterday now is a part of forever,
Bound up in a sheaf, which God holds tight,
With glad days, and sad days, and bad days, which never
Shall visit us more with their bloom and their blight,
Their fulness of sunshine or sorrowful night.

Let them go, since we cannot re-live them,
Cannot undo and cannot atone;
God in his mercy receive, forgive them!
Only the new days are our own;
To-day is ours, and to-day alone.”
― Susan Coolidge, A Few More Verses

“Few things are more aggravating than to be forgiven when one has done no wrong.”
― Susan Coolidge, What Katy Did at School