Johnny Tremain Quotes

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill...we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“How old are you Johnny" she asked.
Sixteen."
And what's that-a boy or a man?"
He laughed. "A boy in time of peace and a man in time of war.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“After that Johnny began to watch himself. For the first time he learned to think before he spoke.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“Just like the sun coming up yonder out of the sea, pushing rays of light ahead of it.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“If you can't do, you'd best shut up about it.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“And many of the townsfolk of Boston seem more concerned with the profit of their business than the great cause that is swirling around them.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“If you can't do, you had best shut up. He started to slam the door, thought better of it. If you can't do, you'd best not slam doors.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“On rocky islands gulls woke.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“The first of the tea ships, the Dartmouth,”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“down Cambridge road through the bushes on Charlestown Common a scurry of red ants. Had he really seen them or imagined them? But all about him people were exclaiming, ‘Look, there they are!’ Those red ants were British soldiers. To his left the last moment of sunset light was dying. The day had been amazingly warm, but with night a fresh breeze came up off the ocean. Lights began to glimmer in Charlestown and on warships. Seemingly there was nothing more to be seen from Beacon Hill. Silently people turned to go to their houses. ‘Look!’ Johnny cried. You could see the flash of musket fire, too far away to be heard. Fireflies swarming, hardly more than that. –4– Getting”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skills . . . we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“THE fourteenth of April, 1775.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“It was sink or swim for him—and happens he’s swimming.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“A man can stand up”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“saying. ‘I want it as a birthday present to my venerable”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“Human relations never seem to stand completely still. This apple, for instance. It might ripen into something better than it now was, or, unromantically, it might rot away in his pocket.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“At first Mrs. Lapham tended to humor the ‘poor boy.’ As he preferred the birth and death room to the attic with Dove and Dusty, she had let him stay on. He had never in all his life slept in a bed alone—much less a whole room. He wanted to be alone. There was one trouble with his new quarters.”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“On the day that Johnny”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain

“was by chance Johnny saw the Lytes’ ruby coach trundling slowly down Orange Street, heading”
― Esther Forbes, Johnny Tremain