Nathaniel Hawthorne Quotes

“It's Nathaniel Hawthorne Month in English. Poor Nathaniel. Does he know what they've done to him? We're reading The Scarlet Letter one sentence at a time, tearing it up and chewing on its bones.
It's all about SYMBOLISM, says Hairwoman. Every word chosen by Nathaniel, every comma, every paragraph break -- these were all done on purpose. To get a decent grade in her class, we have to figure out what he was really trying to say. Why couldn't he just say what he meant? Would they pin scarlet letters on his chest? B for blunt, S for straightforward?”
― Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

“I wanted to wake you straightaway, but I knew I had to wait several hours to ensure you were safely recovered."
"What! How long has it been?"
"Five minutes. I got bored.”
― Jonathan Stroud, The Golem's Eye

“she wanted to know what American writers I liked. "Hawthorne, Henry James, Emily Dickinson…" "No, living." Ah, well, hmm, let's see: how difficult, the rival factor being what it is, for a contemporary author, or would-be author, to confess admiration for another. At last I said, "Not Hemingway—a really dishonest man, the closet-everything. Not Thomas Wolfe—all that purple upchuck; of course, he isn't living. Faulkner, sometimes: Light in August. Fitzgerald, sometimes: Diamond as Big as the Ritz, Tender Is the Night. I really like Willa Cather. Have you read My Mortal Enemy?" With no particular expression, she said, "Actually, I wrote it.”
― Truman Capote, Portraits and Observations: The Essays of Truman Capote

“Destroy! destroy! destroy! hums the under-consciousness. Love and produce! Love and produce! cackles the upper consciousness. And the world hears only the Love-and- produce cackle. Refuses to hear the hum of destruction under- neath. Until such time as it will have to hear.”
― D.H. Lawrence

“I have before now experienced that the best way to get a vivid impression and feeling of a landscape is to sit down before it and read, or become otherwise absorbed in thought; for then, when our eyes happen to be attracted to the landscape, you seem to catch Nature at unawares, and see her before she has time to change her aspect. The effect lasts but for a single instant, and passes away almost as soon as you are conscious of it; but it is real for that moment. It is as if you could overhear and understand what the trees are whispering to one another; as if you caught a glimpse of a face unveiled, which veils itself from every willful glance. The mystery is revealed, and, after a breath or two, becomes just as much a mystery as before.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Herman Melville came to see me at the Consulate, looking much as he used to do (a little paler, and perhaps a little sadder), in a rough outside coat, and with his characteristic gravity and reserve of manner.... [W]e soon found ourselves on pretty much our former terms of sociability and confidence. Melville has not been well, of late; ... and no doubt has suffered from too constant literary occupation, pursued without much success, latterly; and his writings, for a long while past, have indicated a morbid state of mind.... Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of everything that lies beyond human ken, and informed me that he had "pretty much made up his mind to be annihilated"; but still he does not seem to rest in that anticipation; and, I think, will never rest until he gets hold of a definite belief. It is strange how he persists -- and has persisted ever since I knew him, and probably long before -- in wondering to-and-fro over these deserts, as dismal and monotonous as the sand hills amid which we were sitting. He can neither believe, nor be comfortable in his unbelief; and he is too honest and courageous not to try to do one or the other. If he were a religious man, he would be one of the most truly religious and reverential; he has a very high and noble nature, and better worth immortality than most of us.

[after what would be their last meeting]”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Trying to imagine E. M. Forster, who found Ulysses indecorous, at a London performance of Lenny Bruce—to which in fact he was once taken.

Trying to imagine the same for a time-transported Nathaniel Hawthorne—who during his first visit to Europe was even shocked by the profusion of naked statues.”
― David Markson, The Last Novel

“Externally, the jollity of aged men has much in common with the mirth of children; the intellect, any more than a deep sense of humor, has little to do with the matter; it is, with both, a gleam that plays upon the surface, and imparts a sunny and cheery aspect alike to the green branch, and gray, mouldering trunk.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“...as a mark of gratitude for his previous patronage, and a slight super-added morsel after breakfast, put likewise into his hand a whale! The great fish, reversing his experience with the prophet of Nineveh, immediately began his progress down the same red pathway of fate whiter so varied a caravan had preceded him.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of the Seven Gables

“That little baggage hath witchcraft in her.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“I was too much of a Bronx kid to read Emerson or Hawthorne.”
― Don DeLillo

“هیچ آدمی نمی‌تواند مدت درازی قیافه اصلی خود را به خویش بنمایاند و قیافه دیگری از خود را به مردم. مگر آنکه سرانجام به حیرانی بیفتد و از خود بپرسد کدام یک از این قیافه‌ها واقعی است؟
داغ ننگ - ترجمه سیمین دانشور - انتشارات نیل 1346 - ص178”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“آیا عشق و نفرت از یک چشمه سیراب نشده‌اند و آیا هر دو در اصل یکی نیستند؟ این موضوع عجیب قابل بحث و تعمق است. عشق و نفرت هرکدام در آخرین حد ترقی خویش، به مرحله صمیمیتی نهایی و رازدانی بدل می‌شوند. هر دو آدمی را چنان به محبوب یا منفورش عادت می‌دهند، چنان او را وابسته طرف می‌دارند که گویی غذای روح خود را از او کسب می‌کند. عاشق شیفته و هم چنین کسی که نفرت می‌ورزد، در شیفتگی دست کمی از عاشق ندارد. هر دو در موقع از دست دادن معبود یا منفور، یکسان تنها و بیکس و مهجور می‌مانند. بنابراین از نظر فلسفی این دو احساس در اصل یکی هستند با این تفاوت که برحسب اتفاق یکی در نور آسمانی دیده می‌شود و دیگری در شعاعی مخوف و غبارآلود جلوه می‌کند.
داغ ننگ - ترجمه سیمین دانشور - انتشارات نیل 1346 - ص221”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Es de gran importancia para la salud moral e intelectual de un hombre tener por compañeros otros hombres distintos a él, que no se interesen por sus ocupaciones, y que para conocer sus capacidades y saber en qué círculos se mueven le sea preciso salirse de sí mismo.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Pluck up a spirit, and do not be all the time sighing and murmuring!”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“Ever afterwards so touched, and so transfigured.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlett Letter

“It is singular, however, how long a time often passes before words embody things; and with what security two persons, who choose to avoid a certain subject, may approach its very verge, and retire without disturbing it.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“مگر نه این است که بیگانگی از حق و حقیقت به صورت جنون در این جهان زمینی تظاهر می‌نماید؟ آیا دیوانگی غیر از دور ماندن از واقعیت است؟
داغ ننگ - ترجمه سیمین دانشور - انتشارات نیل 1346 - ص157”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“No hay una sola puntada en esa letra bordada que no haya sentido en su corazón.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

“I have wrenched and torn an idea out of my miserable brain, or rather, the fragment of an idea, like a tooth ill-drawn and leaving the roots to torture me.”
― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The letter A is red,” I say.
“Red like an apple?” He scribbles something in his notebook.
“No,” I say. “A is a scarlet letter.”
― Laurie Lico Albanese, Hester