Fred Gipson > Quotes

“What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem might cruel and unfair, but that's how life is a part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“Well, when you're fourteen years old, you can't afford to mix in a rock fight with your five-year-old brother. You can't do it, even when you're in the right. You just can't explain a thing like that to your folks. All they'll do is point out how much bigger you are, how unfair it is to your little brother.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“But that isn’t the only way life is. A part of the time, it’s mighty good. And a man can’t afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad…. You understand?”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“was trembling”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“We called him Old Yeller. The name had a sort of double meaning. One part meant that his short hair was a dingy yellow, a color that we called “yeller” in those days. The other meant that when he opened his head, the sound he let out came closer to being a yell than a bark. I remember like yesterday how he strayed in out of nowhere to our log cabin on Birdsong Creek. He made me so mad at first that I wanted to kill him. Then, later, when I had to kill him, it was like having to shoot some of my own folks.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“That was as rough a thing as I ever heard tell of happening to a boy. And I'm mighty proud to learn how my boy stood up to it. You couldn't ask any more of a grown man... It's not a thing you can forget. I don't guess it's a thing you ought to forget. What I mean is, things like that happen. They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that's how life is part of the time. But that isn't the only way life is. A part of the time, it's mighty good. And a man can't afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“I”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“pool herd” of their little separate bunches of steers and trailed them to the new cattle market at Abilene, Kansas.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“Now nothing was left hanging to the pole but the frazzled ends of the snapped blades.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“I’d heard fiddle music, but I’d never known it could stab you like a thorn and make you like the sting of it. I’d never heard none that made you want to laugh and cry at the same time. Or made you see the sun coming up out of a big pool of water, while the frogs hollered from the wild onions growing along the banks and the speckled bass popped their tails in the shoal water and the mockingbirds sat in the tops of the cedars and sang like they do at daybreak.”
― Fred Gipson, Hound Dog Man

“I reached in and let him lick my hand. 'Yeller,' I said, 'I'll be back. I'm promising that I'll be back.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“Old Yeller.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“... I guessed that when you are nearly a man, you have to learn to put up with a lot of aggravation from little old bitty kids.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“When it came to gunfire Jumper didn’t have any more sense than a red ant in a hot skillet.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“What on earth, boys!”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“Then at night, we could hardly sleep. This”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“everybody,”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“You're getting to be a big boy; and while I'm gone, you'll be the man of the family. I want you to act like one. You take care of Mama and Little Arliss. You look after the work and don't wait around for your mama to point out what needs to be done. Think you can do that?”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“It had to be a lot more fun when you had your own dog on a varmint hunt and could listen for his tree-bark off out yonder in the dark woods of a night and could say to the rest: “That’s that old Snuffy dog of mine. Guess he’s put another’n up a tree!”
― Fred Gipson, Hound Dog Man

“Fiddling Tom stood up. He reached down his fiddle case and said solemnly: “There’s a time when a boy can lay his belly on the ground and feel the heartbeats of the earth coming up to him through the grass roots. That’s his time to prowl. That’s his time to smell the par-fume of the wild flowers, to hear the wind singing wild in his ears, to hurt with the want of knowing what’s on the yonder side of the next ridge. The Almighty, he never meant for a boy to miss them things when that time comes!”
― Fred Gipson, Hound Dog Man

“You want our boy to grow up to be nothing but a no-account fiddle-footed rake, Aaron Kinney?” she said. “With never a thought in his head but to run wild in the woods with a passel of pesky hound-dogs?”

“No, Cora,” Papa said. “But a coon hunt now and then ain’t going to ruin him. I was on a few myself and got over it.”

“Yes, Mama pointed out, “but that was because I laid the law down about dogs. Hadn’t been for that, you’d still be fooling away your time in the woods, same as always. And we wouldn’t own a rag to cover our backs.”
― Fred Gipson, Hound Dog Man

“Well, plague take it, Aaron,” he said to Papa, “you can’t find a woman that’ll put up with what a hound will. You take a dog like one of them yonder. You can starve them half to death. You can run him till his feet’s wore off to the bloody bones. You can git on a high lonesome drunk and kick him all over the place. But he’s still your dog. Ready to lick your hand or warm your feet on a cold night. Now, show me a woman that’ll do the same.”
― Fred Gipson, Hound Dog Man

“through me. I didn’t know much about hydrophobia,”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller

“They may seem mighty cruel and unfair, but that’s how life is part of the time. But that isn’t the only way life is. A part of the time, it’s mighty good. And a man can’t afford to waste all the good part, worrying about the bad parts. That makes it all bad.”
― Fred Gipson, Old Yeller