Paul Gallico > Quotes

“You learn eventually that, while there are no villains, there are no heroes either. And until you make the final discovery that there are only human beings, who are therefore all the more fascinating, you are liable to miss something.”
― Paul Gallico

“Nobody's a natural. You work to get good and then work to get better. It's hard to stay on top.”
― Paul Gallico

“No game in the world is as tidy and dramatically neat as baseball, with cause and effect, crime and punishment, motive and result, so cleanly defined. ”
― Paul Gallico

“The setting sun had turned the blue sky a brilliant orange, then soft pink merging to pearl; the plum velvet of night had come out of the east, spangled with stars.”
― Paul Gallico, Ludmila: A Story Of Liechtenstein

“It is only when you open your veins and bleed onto the page a little that you establish contact with your reader. If you do not believe in the characters or the story you are doing at that moment with all your mind, strength, and will, if you don't feel joy and excitement while writing it, then you're wasting good white paper, even if it sells, because there are other ways in which a writer can bring in the rent money besides writing bad or phony stories.”
― Paul Gallico

“Japanese goldfish,
With your gossamer tail,
You are the loveliest creature
I have ever seen."

"Japanese kitten,
Put your tongue back in where it belongs
And go away.
I know exactly what you are thinking.”
― Paul Gallico, Honorable Cat

“This is her home now--of her own free will.”
― Paul Gallico, The Snow Goose

“Hers was the bliss of one who knew that at last she was off upon the adventure at the end of which lay her heart’s desire’.”
― Paul Gallico

“To die is to depart, to go away from these things forever and become one with the generations that have preceded us since the beginning of time, a whispered memory in the bones and whiskers of the generations to come.”
― Paul Gallico, Thomasina

“No one has ever been able to discover how they make this subtle sound, and what is more, no one ever will. It is a secret that has endured from the very beginning of the time of cats and will never be revealed.”
― Paul Gallico

“They were worlds apart in everything but the simplicity of their humanity, and so they were really not apart at all.”
― Paul Gallico, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris

“And the truth was that in life on earth there was no such thing as happiness without pain, victory without defeat. There were joy and enchantment and beauty to be garnered on the path, but at all times, too, there were burdens to be borne.”
― Paul Gallico, The Lonely

“When in doubt - wash!”
― Paul Gallico, Jennie

“He was a friend to all things wild, and the wild things repaid him with their friendship.”
― Paul Gallico, The Snow Goose

“Drab and colorless as her existence would seem to have been, Mrs. Harris had always felt a craving for beauty and color and which up to this moment had manifested itself in a love for flowers....

Outside the windows of her basement flat were two window boxes of geraniums, her favorite flower, and inside, wherever there was room, there was a little pot containing a geranium struggling desperately to conquer its environment, or a single hyacinth or tulip, bought from a barrow for a hard-earned shilling.

Then too, the people for whom she worked would sometimes present her with the leavings of their cut flowers which in their wilted state she would take home and try to nurse back to health, and once in a while, particularly in the spring, she would buy herself a little box of pansies, primroses or anemones. As long as she had flowers Mrs. Harris had no serious complaints concerning the life she led. They were her escape from the somber stone desert in which she lived. These bright flashes of color satisfied her. They were something to return to in the evening, something to wake up to in the morning.”
― Paul Gallico, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris

“she could not see how much there was to live for, that she was young and that one could build anew upon the ashes of failure”
― Paul Gallico

“Ha ha! How do you like my storm?”
― Paul Gallico, Thomasina

“Because for all of his big frame, loud voice and quick smile, Lou Gehrig was one of those strange souls born to be frustrated, to have glory and happiness always within his reach, yes, even to have it in his grasp, only to have it snatched away from him.”
― Paul Gallico, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees

“This is her home now...of her own free will.”
― Paul Gallico, The Silent Miaow: A Manual for Kittens, Strays, and Homeless Cats

“God I have been - God I am. But quite frankly, sometimes it is all just a little too much for one small cat.”
― Paul Gallico, Thomasina

“Smiling slyly, pleased with herself, Lady Dant shut the wardrobe door, but she could not shut out from the mind of Mrs Harris what she had seen there: beauty, perfection, the ultimate in adornment that a woman could desire. Mrs Harris was no less a woman than Lady Dant, or any other. She wanted, she wanted, she wanted a dress from what must be surely the most expensive shop in the world, that of Mr Dior in Paris.”
― Paul Gallico, Mrs. 'Arris Goes to Paris

“And when the sun sets...then the night magic spreads out above your head; worlds and universes a-borning and a-dying—stars and planets and galaxies. And the bigger the telescope they can make, and the farther into the beyond they are able to penetrate, the greater grows the mystery.”
― Paul Gallico, The Man Who Was Magic

“Peter thought that he had noticed the shine of tears in her eyes, though of course it couldn't be so, since he had never heard of cats shedding tears. It was only later he was to learn that they could both laugh and cry.”
― Paul Gallico, Jennie

“...it is the peculiar power of flowers that while they are universal and spread their species over the world, they invoke in each beholder the dearest and most cherished memories.”
― Paul Gallico, The Small Miracle

“And much as Lou loved his mother, his adoration of his Eleanor was out of this world. All the affection that had been denied him as a child, all the limitless affection he had to give on his own part and which had never had a chance to expand, came to a head in and about Eleanor. Strong as Mom was, Lou was stronger when it came to his determination to marry Eleanor, and the wedding was set for September, 1933, at the Long Island home of a friend of Eleanor’s. They were to live in an apartment in New Rochelle so as to be near Mom. Mom of course couldn’t understand why Lou didn’t go on living in the house with them so that she could cook and look after him as usual.”
― Paul Gallico, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees

“Yes, I learned to hate, Peter, and that is worse than being sick, or starved, or thirsty, or in pain.”
― Paul Gallico, Jennie

“There has been considerable discussion as to how much, in cold cash, Lou Gehrig actually cost the New York Yankees. According to Gehrig, he received $500 for making the momentous decision to sign a contract with organized baseball. That $500 was the biggest sum of money that any of the Gehrigs had ever seen. It came at a time when it was desperately needed. It paid rent and doctors and hospital bills and nurses. It represented a sacrifice made by Gehrig, freely and unheroically and untheatrically. For that sorely needed $500 he sold his right and his chance to go on into that other world around whose fringes he had played the last two years.”
― Paul Gallico, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees

“It was night now, bright with moon fragment and stars and northern glow.”
― Paul Gallico, The Snow Goose

“Священник утверждал, что нельзя любить женщину и не полюбить ночь, и звезды, и воздух, которым она дышит, и солнце, согревающее ее волосы. Нельзя любить девочку и не полюбить полевые цветы, которые она приносит с прогулки, и дворнягу или кота, которых она таскает на руках, и даже ситец, из которого сшит ее передник. Нельзя любить море и не любить горы; нельзя любить летние дни и не любить дождь; нельзя любить птиц и не любить рыб; нельзя любить людей — всех или немногих — и не полюбить зверей полевых и зверей лесных; нельзя любить зверей и не полюбить траву, деревья, кусты, цветы, вереск и мох.”
― Paul Gallico, Thomasina

“pretty soon Lou Gehrig was poling them high, wide and handsome over the college fences. He hit seven home runs in one season, one of them the longest ever seen at South Field, and batted over .540. And he won himself a new name. They called him the “Babe Ruth of Columbia.”
― Paul Gallico, Lou Gehrig: Pride of the Yankees