Seeton > Seeton's Quotes

“Children are a burden to a mother, but not the way a heavy box is to a mule. Our children weight hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank,and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

“Mama told me to make a special point to remember the best times of my life. There are so many hard things to live through, and latching on to the good things will give you strength to endure, she says. So I must remember this day. It is beautiful and this seems like the best time to live and the best place”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

“[Children] just cannot be sad too long, it is not in them, as children mourn in little bits here and there like patchwork in their lives.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

“My life feels like a book left out on the porch, and the wind blows the pages faster and faster, turning always toward a new chapter faster than I can stop to read it.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“I have a deep-down belief that there are folks in the world who are good through and through, and others who came in mean and will go out mean. It's like coffee. Once it's roasted, it all looks brown. Until you pour hot water on it and see what comes out. Folks get into hot water, you see what comes out.”
― Nancy E. Turner, Sarah's Quilt

“Living is getting knocked down time and again, then standing up time and again, and once more. It's easy to act honorable when things are coming along and all your pastures are green. Plenty difficult when the ground is dried and burned and people have connived to take even that from you. I'll sell this place, or I'll lose it. I'll go on. People who don't have hard times aren't living.”
― Nancy E. Turner, Sarah's Quilt

“Taking up marriage is a good excuse for taking up cursing, I think.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“It seems there is always a road with bends and forks to choose, and taking one path means you can never take another one. There's no starting over nor undoing the steps I've taken. It isn't like I'd want to not have my little ones and Jack and that ranch, it is part of life to have to support yourself. It's just that I want everything, my insides are not just hungry, but greedy. I want to find out all the things in the world and still have a family and a ranch. Maybe part of passing that test was a marker for where I've been, but it feels more like a pointer for something I'll never reach. (November 29, 1887 entry, pg 309)”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“I used to complain to myself that life was so boring, that there was too much laundry to do, too many noses to wipe. Now there are not enough noses to wipe.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“I have been sad almost a whole year, thinking that taking that test was somehow the end of my learning and that not having that as a possibility in my future left a big empty spot in my life that the children and the ranch didn't fill. But my life is not like that, it is a tree, and I can stay in one place and spread out in all directions, and I can do more learning shading this brood of mine than if I was all alone.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“Mama said it's probably because of Suzanne, and that you are never the same after a child dies. That made me wonder what she was like before Clover died, because I don't think I really knew my own mother until I had children, and if she was different before, I don't remember.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901

“Our children weigh hard on my heart, and thinking about them growing up honest and healthy, or just living to grow up at all, makes a load in my chest that is bigger than the safe at the bank, and more valuable to me than all the gold inside it.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“A clock only turns one direction”
― Nancy E. Turner, Sarah's Quilt

“No wonder Mama went away in her head when Clover passed on. And then Papa. I am going to visit my Mama tomorrow and tell her I am sorry for everything I ever did that caused her sorrow or worry, and for ever wishing, during those days, that she would come back. She probably wanted to stay there. It's a wonder she came back at all. If I knew how to make myself go away in my head, I declare I would.”
― Nancy E. Turner, These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901, Arizona Territories

“One thing I know, whispered Savannah, is that if he was quiet, and you were quiet, and neither of you minded it, then you are in love.”
― Nancy E. Turner