We Took to the Woods Quotes

“A house you can rebuild; a bridge you can restring; a washed-out road you can fill in. But there is nothing you can do about a tree but mourn.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“I don't have to point out, I'm sure, that letters received should be answered within a reasonable time- say a month; but there is such a thing as answering too promptly and writing too long a letter. It makes answering a burden to your correspondent, who will feel obligated to do at least as well as you have done, and will soon be heartily sick of the whole thing.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“You can think of a lot of things to make out of nothing, if you have to.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“I think the difficulty with people who can't follow printed directions for knitting or anything else is that they try to understand them. They read the whole thing through and it doesn't make sense to them, so they start with a defeatist attitude.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“In spite of all that is said, and more especially written, about the crabbed New Englander, New Englanders, like all ordinary people, are nice. Their manner of proffering a favor is sometimes on the crusty side, but that is much more often diffidence than surliness.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“A poem to repeat, either aloud or silently, will help you over a hill or on a long mile as surely as a neighbor who stops his team and gives you a lift.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“The three weapons to use against axe cuts are: (a) sense enough not to get cut, (b) a good working knowledge of how to apply a tourniquet, if the worst occurs, and (c) a philosophical attitude.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“The only way to know how much you love a thing is to see it in peril of being lost.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“A reasonable amount of danger is part of the price of living.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Most local cooks have two ideas about what to do with food. They either fry it, or else they make chowder out of it.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Christmas in the woods is so much better than Christmas on the Outside. We do exactly what we want to do about it, not what we have to do because the neighbors will think it's funny if we don't; or because of the kids, who will judge our efforts not by their own standards but by the standards set up by the parents of other kids.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“The thing to do, once you know you are lost, is to find a good, safe place to build a little fire, build it, fire three shots, light a cigarette, and sit down and wait.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“All ordinary people like us, everywhere, are trying to find the same things. It makes no difference whether they are New Englanders or Texans or Malayans or Finns. They all want to be left alone to conduct their own private search for a personal peace, a reasonable security, a little love, a chance to attain happiness through achievement.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“If you have a simply swell story in mind, you can forget the rules. A swell story takes care of itself.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“We've managed to make a good marriage. This I say with all humility. It's a marriage in which there is nothing that can be hurt by the roughest usage. It's a marriage that you can let yourself go in, a marriage in which you can put your feet up and relax.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Once a thing is forgotten, it's forgotten until next time. Then you find to your surprise that a lot of things you thought were essential aren't essential at all. It's very enlightening.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Adventure, free of actual risk, is hard to produce.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“If it would help humanity or the course of the War by so much as one iota, I would gladly sit all day long and listen to eye-witness accounts of air raids and hour by hour reports on the progress made or not made along the numerous fronts. But it would't help anything, and it would keep me in a constant state of turmoil and indigestion. So we have our fifteen minute dose of everything's-going-to-hell each evening, and the rest of the day we try to forget about it. There's not very much tranquility left in the world today.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“You don't have to understand directions. All you have to do is follow them; and you can follow them only one step at a time. What you need is not intelligence, but a blind faith.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“I'm a good knitter, and I'm proud of it. I see no point in being modest about things you know you do well. It doesn't indicate humility so much as hypocrisy or lack of perception.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Aside from forest fire, there's nothing to be afraid of in the woods, except yourself. If you've got sense, you can keep out of trouble. If you haven't got sense, you'll get into trouble, here or anywhere else.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“It's very illuminating to have to make a list, which you will very possibly have occasion to use, of the things you'd save in an extremity. It reduces one's material possessions to their proper place.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“It's fun to take a pile of raw materials and make something out of them. The more demanding the work, the greater the satisfaction.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“It's a terribly trite thing to say, I know, but most of us have to be needed to be happy.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“One of the most important parts of education is learning to get along with other people.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Parenthood anywhere from the heart of Texas to the middle of Manhattan is one long coping with maladjusted personalities, crooked teeth, allergies to goose feathers and lamentable traits inherited from the other side of the family.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Writing is hard work, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It's hard on the eyes, the back, the fanny, the disposition and the nail polish.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“A man who has cursed the boss all evening to his confreres is almost always a man who goes to bed feeling at peace with the world, and who wakes up ready to put out a good day's work.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“Writing is hard work, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise. It's hard on the eyes the back, the fanny, the disposition and the nail polish.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods

“I've read a lot of first-rate writing, and I have some critical sense; so I know where I stand. I'll never be first rate. I'll improve with practice, I trust, but I haven't got what it takes to reach the top.”
― Louise Dickinson Rich, We Took to the Woods