And Now Tomorrow Quotes

“One grew used to years, like garments. At least one knew where the holes and patched places were; one had learned not to strain threadbare folds past endurance. A new year felt stiff and semi-fitted as one tried to move in it without self-consciousness. It was like dresses that used to be made to allow for growth, too sturdy and voluminous and reaching to boot tops. Only time and hard use would accomplish the fitting, and I did not look forward to that inevitable process.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“Love, when it comes for the first time, has the fierce and bewildering beat of spring in its pulses. Such ecstasy and despair are not to be reckoned with in terms of sanity and reason. The foolish and wise are equally at its mercy. Let no one doubt its power to exalt or betray, for it can rise renewed from bludgeonings or shrivel at a single breath. I think we were not meant to endure its rigours for more than a brief span.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“When you have reason to doubt the man you love another man’s kiss may seem a poor substitute, but it can bolster up a woman’s pride. We may want only the love that is denied; but to know that we continued to be desirable is a prop to which we cling, and cling we must to whatever our hearts can lay hold on.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“In the adult world to which I suddenly realized we all belonged, I supposed a triangle would be substituted for the outline of a heart. Well, after all, what was a triangle but a heart with the grace taken out of it?”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“No hardy perennial has the enduring quality of hope. Cut it to the roots, stamp it underfoot, let frost and fire work their will, and still some valiant shoot will push, to grow again on such scanty fare as it can find. Only time and the cruel quicklime of fact can destroy that stubborn urgency.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“Miracles are out of fashion nowadays. Or perhaps it is only that they have been explained away from us. Radios and newsreels and words have shorn them of their mystery. Yet to each of us, I think, a miracle is given at some time in our lives. We may not choose the moment it shall be revealed or the form it shall take. We may not even realize till long afterwards that it was our privilege to be part of one. Our minds may betray the wonder that our hearts accept. I fought against the miracle that was to be mine, but there was no denying it when it came to me.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“We are less indispensable than we think, even to those we love.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“We none of us hear all we might.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“I broke off, having said more than I had meant to, but if I had risen up with a hammer in one hand and a sickle in the other I could not have startled the group about the table more.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“Only children, I thought, can play and talk together without this self-imposed constraint. And even children’s eyes are quick to note the difference between a patched sweater and a squirrel muff. They recognize the outward symbols and are more wary than we guess. I found myself wondering when I had first been made aware of the invisible barriers that are so much more formidable than those of brick and stone and barbed wire.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“At such tense moments it often happens, as it happened to me then, that some insignificant object will become forever linked to our extremity. We must recall the exact shape of a leaf whose shadow fell across the blind of a sickroom; the scroll on the handle of a spoon out fingers gripped in the numbness of despair, the lace that edged the handkerchief we pressed to our lips to hide their trembling.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow

“The drip of cold rain in the darkness and those four words he had spoken became one to me as I stood watching him go down the path—fond, casual words that were never meant to be weighted down with the importance I gave them. Yet all those days and weeks and months and years afterwards my heart echoed them. If they became distorted and magnified out of all proportion, the fault is mine and mine alone. For I had no right to cling to them as I did because my need of their reassurance was so great. Yet I am not the first, and I shall not be the last, to try to make a bowstring into an anchor chain.”
― Rachel Field, And Now Tomorrow