The Young Clementina Quotes

“Friends that you have known for a long time and love very dearly never seem to grow old.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“It is curious, isn’t it, that things you know well never look dirty and dilapidated—other people’s old furniture looks shabby and moth-eaten. “I would never have that horrible old couch in my room,” you say. But your own old couch is every bit as bad and you are not disgusted with its appearance; it is your friend, you see, and you remember it when it was new and smart. Friends that you have known for a long time and love very dearly never seem to grow old.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Do you ever have days like that when nothing can go wrong? And then there are the days when can go right, Paula continued. When your hair won't lie down properly, and your stockings develop ladders at the worst possible moment, or your suspender breaks, and buttons fly off your gloves. When you say the wrong things to the wrong people, and spill coffee on your favorite frock, and break your reading glasses, and your cook asks for a raise - you know the kind of thing I mean, said Paula.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“I can take a book in my hands and voyage across the world. China, Burma, Jamaica—the very sound of the words is an enchantment bringing me sights and sounds, and odors that my senses have never savored.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Don't you worry. It doesn't do no good worrying over things—just sail in.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“A fat, stolid young man came forward to serve us. "A drinking trough for a dog. Yes, Moddam. Would you prefer a plain trough or one with 'dog' written on it?"
Paula looked at him gravely. "It doesn't really matter," she replied. "My dogs can't read and my husband never drinks water.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“The idea of writing down one’s difficulties and perplexities is not a new one. Great men have found it valuable in clearing their minds and helping them to wise and deliberate judgment—why shouldn’t I, in my smaller way, find a solution to my difficulties in the same manner?”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Death is not the saddest way to lose somebody you love.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent thing, an opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“A tiny flat it is, high up among the chimney pots, two rooms and a tiny kitchen and a bathroom all my very own. I have tried to make it bright with distempered walls, and gaily colored chintz, but the smuts of London wage a continual war upon cleanliness and brightness, and I have neither the time nor the money to fight them with success. Mrs. Cope, my “daily woman,” comes in and does battle while I am at my work, but although she uses an incredible quantity of cleaning material—the sinews of her war—the result is indecisive, to say the least of”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“It is a terrible thing to be angry with the dead.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Wherever Paula went she made friends and gathered information—she was interested in everything and everybody, and her interest drew people toward her and opened their hearts. Her manner was always natural and sincere, and it rarely failed to evoke a natural and sincere response—she was never patronizing, never gushing, never subservient, she was always herself.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“No one is forever occupied with sorrow, and there is a kind of gaiety that goes hand in hand with sorrow. Sorrow stands aside for a while to make room for mirth, and then steps forward to take her victim in a stronger grip. It was like that with me.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Knowledge is less hard to bear than ignorance if you possess an imagination.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“How he had suffered . . . . I saw then, for the first time, that it was the mixture of strength and weakness in Garth's nature which made him so vulnerable to suffering. A weaker man would have bowed his head before the storm; a stronger man could have ridden it out. Garth was so fashioned that the storm twisted him, tortured him beyond bearing, left him maimed but still upright, still rebellious.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“I was not alone in my experience—not alone anymore. The mere fact that another had walked where I was walking made the path easier for my feet.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“I came here to escape. You know that, I told him. Why didn't you rescue me from those awful people? I hate people.
I told you they wouldn't snub you.
I only want to be left in peace.
They can't do that. It's snubs or kisses with that bunch. I guessed it would be kisses today.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“That was *not* a joke, she said in mock disapproval. So you have no business to laugh. It is very sad when people don't see your jokes - and lots of people can't, for the life of them, see mine. My jokes are either very subtle or very poor - I can't think which it can be.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“These things are needed today more than ever, these links with the past. Old houses with England in their bones. The war has torn up many roots, torn down age-old beautiful ideas. This passion of destruction which has fallen upon the world is a dangerous thing—so it seems to me—it is a madness that cannot be cured all in a minute with treaties written on a piece of paper and signed by diplomats. England’s soul must be kept safe till she needs it again and the devil let loose by the war is chained up.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“wrote to Kitty saying that I was sorry for what had occurred and asking her to come to see me if she was in town, but I had no reply. Kitty vanished out of my life. She was angry with me, I knew. She had wanted me to lie, and I would not lie—I could not.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“I felt weak and silly, and the happiness of the children, as they ran about and shouted at each other, touched a spring in my heart. They were so gay and pretty in the sunshine, like a flock of bright birds flitting to and fro. I had missed all that in my life—all the joys of normal womanhood—I was a very lonely woman, on the way to a lonely old age.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“These were the things Kitty talked about when I met her—and I listened. She never wanted to know about my life—and why should she? My life was so monotonous that I would have found it difficult to discuss it with her if she had ever shown any desire to know what I did with myself.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“but the war was unnatural, he felt that the war was an Evil Thing, he felt that God was hiding His face. Nowadays quite a lot of people think about the war as father thought, but, at the time, the idea was unpopular. The clergy waved banners like the rest, and declared that God was on our side. Father thought that God was on nobody’s side. Father thought that the world had gone mad, and God was angry. His sermons caused some trouble; it was only because he was so well beloved in the parish that they did not cause more.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“The mornings were occupied with lessons. Father taught me himself and he made everything interesting. He was a born teacher, with ideas upon education greatly in advance of his time. I enjoyed my hours with him, they passed quickly—he led my mind from one point to another, so that I learned almost without knowing it. In the afternoon I took the path over the hill to the Manor stables to exercise Garth’s pony and his dog. It was a routine life, busy and useful. The days passed quickly.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Authors often leave their sentences unfinished like that—at least the kind who come to Wentworth’s do—and they are always men. Women authors seem to bother less about local color, or perhaps they bother more. Perhaps they actually pack a couple of suitcases and trek off to Borneo or Canada or wherever it may be, before they send their hero there to hob-nob with head-hunters or to track moose.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“Of course I know that you have forgotten me long ago, you are not lonely like I am. You have a husband to share your life, a house to care for, a garden to enjoy, perhaps you have children. You would think it crazy that a woman you met three years ago for ten minutes should think of you as her greatest friend, but you would not grudge me the consolation of your shadowy presence if you knew what it meant to me.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“The idea of writing down one’s difficulties and perplexities is not a new one. Great men have found it valuable in clearing their minds and helping them to wise and deliberate judgment—why shouldn’t I, in my smaller way, find a solution to my difficulties in the same manner? My mind needs clearing, God knows, and if pen and paper will help me to clear it, I shall not grudge the time or the labor involved.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“I find pleasure in cynicism, the habit is growing. Let it grow, it is a fine protection against the world.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“——gratitude is such an uncomfortable thing——don't you think so, Charlotte? It takes God to receive gratitude graciously.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina

“She should know all there was to know - all that I knew, and, what was more important still, she should know that there was no more to know. Knowledge is less hard to bear than ignorance if you possess an imagination like Clementina's.”
― D.E. Stevenson, The Young Clementina