Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth Quotes
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To a life that seizes Upon content, Locality seems But accident.
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During much of my life, I was anxious to be what someone else wanted me to be. Now I have given up that struggle. I am what I am.
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No wonder the tulip is the patron flower of Holland. Looking at it one almost smells fresh paint laid on in generous brilliance: doors, blinds, whole houses, canal boats, pails, farm wagons - all painted in greens, blues, reds, pinks, yellows.
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Little I ask And that little is not granted." There are few crumbs In this world any more.
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There is something dangerous about mirrors. ... What dynamite we handle when we lift a mirror or bend towards one! I seldom do.
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People don't feel so quarrelsome in warm weather. They get crotchety in the fall and begin to go to law about things after the first hard frosts.
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The sunset caught me, turned the brush to copper,/ set the clouds/ to one great roof of flame/ above the earth.
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Only of one thing I am sure: when I dream I am always ageless.
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I saw the lovely arch Of rainbow span the sky, The gold sun burning As the rain swept by.
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I say that almost everywhere there is beauty enough to fill a person's life if one would only be sensitive to it. but Henry says No: that broken beauty is only a torment, that one must have a whole beauty with man living in relation to it to have a rich civilization and art. . . . Is it because I am a woman that I accept what crumbs I may have, accept the hot-dog stands and amusement parks if I must, if the blue is bright beyond them and the sunset flushes the breasts of sea birds?
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But calm, white calm, was born into a swan.
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When I dream, I am ageless.
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Governments may change, and opinions, and the very appearance of lands themselves, but the slowest thing to change is religion. What has once been associated with worship becomes holy in itself, and self-perpetuating, always built upon the foundation of mingled awe and attraction which the unknown has for the mind of man.
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Today I walked on the lion-coloured hills with only cypresses for company, until the sunset caught me, turned the brush to copper set the clouds to one great roof of flame above the earth, so that I walk through fire, beneath fire, and all in beauty. Being alone I could not be alone, but felt (closer than flesh) the presence of those who once had burned in such transfigurations. My happiness ran through the centuries in one continual brightness. Looking down, I saw the earth beneath me like a rose petaled with mountains, fragrant with deep peace.