106 Quotes by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. We are tenants, not possessors, lovers and not masters.

Life is strong stuff, some of us can bear more of it than others.

Now, having left cities behind me, turned Away forever from the strange, gregarious Huddling of men by stones, I find those various Great towns I knew fused into one, burned Together in the fire of my despising...

Two elements enter into successful and happy gatherings at table. The food, whether simple or elaborate, must be carefully prepared; willingly prepared; imaginatively prepared. And the guests - friends, family or strangers - must be conscious of their welcome.

No man should have proprietary rights over land who does not use that land wisely and lovingly.

Writing is agony for me. I work at it eight hours every day, hoping to get six pages, but I am satisfied with three.

Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.

Men had reached into the scrub and along its boundaries, had snatched what they could get and had gone away, uneasy in that vast indifferent peace; for a man was nothing, crawling ant-like among the myrtle bushes under the pines. Now they were gone, it was as though they had never been. The silence of the scrub was primordial. The wood-thrush crying across it might have been the first bird in the world-or the last.

A man'll seem like a person to a woman, year in, year out. She'll put up and she'll put up. Then one day he'll do something maybe no worse than what he's been a-doing all his life. She'll look at him. And without no warning he'll look like a varmint.