Precious Bane Quotes

“He was ever a strong man, which is almost the same, times, as to say a man with little time for kindness. For if you stop to be kind, you must swerve often from your pat. So when folk tell me of this great man and that great man, I think to myself, Who was stinted of joy for his glory? How many old folk and children did his coach wheels go over? What bridal lacked his song, and what mourner his tars, that he found time to climb so high?”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“I've thought since that when folk grumble about this and that and be not happy, it is not the fault of creation, that is like a vast mere full of good, but it is the fault of their bucket's smallness.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“I'd laboured over it a long while, and labour brings a thing near the heart's core.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“That vivid present of theirs, how faint it grows! The past is only the present become invisible and mute, and because it is invisible and mute, its memoried glances and its murmurs are infinitely precious. We are to-morrow's past.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“What did I do, I, that knew his smile was my summer?”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“There are misfortunes that make you spring up and rush to save yourself, but, there are others that are too bad for this, for they leave nought to do. Then a stillness falls on the soul, like the stillness of a rabbit when the stoat looks hotly upon it and it knows that there is no more to be done.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“Not only had he looked at me, but he had looked with favour and longing, and though I knew it was only because the truth was hidden from him, yet I was glad of what I had, as a winter bird is, that will come to your hand for a little crumb, though in plenteous times she would but mock you from the topmost bough.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“When you've come through a bad time, to tell of it takes the thorn out.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“Mi piaceva osservare la pasta che lievitava al calore della fiamma, e scaldare il forno con le fascine, raccattandone poi la cenere, e allineare per bene le pagnottine. Era piacevole stare nella cucina calda e piena di luce, in cui si diffondeva il buon odore del pane, e guardare fuori i campi e i boschi grigi, freddi e solitari, e poi chiudere le imposte, accendere la candela, apparecchiare e mettere a scaldare la focaccia di patate sulla brace, e sapere anche che di lì a poco tutti quelli che amavo sarebbero stati al riparo per una notte intera.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane

“Perché io credo che l'anima agisca sul corpo, che lo vivifichi col suo soffio e lo ricopra di un velo che lo fa sembrare più bello di quanto non sia.”
― Mary Webb, Precious Bane