Booth Tarkington Quotes

• An ideal wife is any woman who has an ideal husband.

  Booth Tarkington

  Inspirational, Marriage, Wedding

  1924 Looking Forward And Others, 'The Hopeful Pessimist'.

  52 Copy quote

• Gossip is never fatal until it is denied.

  Booth Tarkington

  Gossip, Denied

  46 Copy quote

• Whatever does not pretend at all has style enough.

  Booth Tarkington

  Personality, Style, Doe

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.4, Booklassic

  26 Copy quote

• Take your work seriously but never take yourself seriously and do not take what happens either to yourself or your work seriously.

  Booth Tarkington

  Experience, Seriousness, Happens

  13 Copy quote

• Boyhood is the longest time in life for a boy. The last term of the school-year is made of decades, not of weeks, and living through them is like waiting for the millennium.

  Booth Tarkington

  School, Boys, Years

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “Penrod”, p.102, Booklassic

  26 Copy quote

• Destiny has a constant passion for the incongruous.

  Booth Tarkington

  Passion, Fate, Destiny

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.284, Booklassic

  12 Copy quote

• The only good in pretending is the fun we get out of fooling ourselves that we fool somebody.

  Booth Tarkington

  Fun, Fool, Pretending

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “Alice Adams”, p.247, Booklassic

  25 Copy quote

• The things that we have and that we think are so solid - they're like smoke, and time is like the sky that the smoke disappears into, nothing is left but the sky, and the sky keeps on being just the same forever.

  Booth Tarkington

  Spiritual, Thinking, Sky

  Booth Tarkington (2013). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.74, Courier Corporation

  10 Copy quote

• The understanding smile of an old wife to her husband is one of the loveliest things in the world.

  Booth Tarkington

  Love, Husband, Wife

  10 Copy quote

• Arguments only confirm people in their own opinions.

  Booth Tarkington

  People, Opinion, Arguing

  Booth Tarkington (1932). “The Works of Booth Tarkington”

  7 Copy quote

• I'm not so sure he's wrong about automobiles," he said, "With all their speed forward they may be a step backward for civilization-that is, spiritual civilization ... But automobiles have come, and they bring a greater change in our life than most of us expect. They are here, and almost all outward things are going to be different because of what they bring. They are going to alter war, and they are going to alter peace.

  Booth Tarkington

  Change, Spiritual, War

  Booth Tarkington (2013). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.128, Courier Corporation

  7 Copy quote

• It is love in old age, no longer blind, that is true love. For the love's highest intensity doesn't necessarily mean it's highest quality.

  Booth Tarkington

  Mean, Age, Quality

  9 Copy quote

• Gossip is never fatal until it is denied. Gossip goes on about every human being alive and about all the dead that are alive enough to be remembered, and yet almost never does any harm until some defender makes a controversy. Gossip's a nasty thing, but it's sickly, and if people of good intentions will let it entirely alone, it will die, ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

  Booth Tarkington

  Ninety Nine, People, Gossip

  Booth Tarkington (2013). “The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection”, p.2177, eBookIt.com

  13 Copy quote

• Men were just like sheep, and nothing was easier than for women to set up as shepherds and pen them up in a field.

  Booth Tarkington

  Men, Sheep, Shepherds

  5 Copy quote

• They were upon their great theme: "When I get to be a man!" Being human, though boys, they considered their present estate too commonplace to be dwelt upon. So, when the old men gather, they say: "When I was a boy!" It really is the land of nowadays that we never discover.

  Booth Tarkington

  Boys, Men, Land

  Booth Tarkington (2013). “The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection”, p.2630, eBookIt.com

  7 Copy quote

• My theory on literature is an author who does not indulge in trashiness-writes about people you could introduce into your own home...he did not care to read a book or go to a play about people he would not care to meet at his own dinner table. I believe we should live by certain standards and ideals.

  Booth Tarkington

  Believe, Book, Home

  6 Copy quote

• There are two things that will be believed of any man whatsoever, and one of them is that he has taken to drink

  Booth Tarkington

  Drinking, Taken, Men

  Penrod (1914) ch. 10

  6 Copy quote

• No doubt it is true that there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner repented than over all the saints who consistently remain holy, and the rare, sudden gentlenesses of arrogant people have infinitely more effect than the continual gentleness of gentle people. Arrogance turned gentle melts the heart.

  Booth Tarkington

  Heart, People, Heaven

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.64, Booklassic

  17 Copy quote

• So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.

  Booth Tarkington

  Happiness, Happy, Long

  Booth Tarkington (1932). “The Works of Booth Tarkington”

  7 Copy quote

• Youth cannot imagine romance apart from youth.

  Booth Tarkington

  Romance, Youth, Imagine

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.32, Booklassic

  8 Copy quote

• There aren't any old times. When times are gone they're not old, they're dead! There aren't any times but new times!

  Booth Tarkington

  Gone, Old Time

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.57, Booklassic

  9 Copy quote

• Nobody has a good name in a bad mouth. Nobody has a good name in a silly mouth either.

  Booth Tarkington

  Silly, Names, Mouths

  Booth Tarkington (2013). “The Essential Booth Tarkington Collection”, p.2178, eBookIt.com

  7 Copy quote

• Mystics always hope that science will some day overtake them.

  Booth Tarkington

  Science

  5 Copy quote

• Some day the laws of glamour must be discovered, because they are so important that the world would be wiser now if Sir Isaac Newton had been hit on the head, not by an apple, but by a young lady.

  Booth Tarkington

  Law, Apples, Important

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “The Magnificent Ambersons”, p.42, Booklassic

  7 Copy quote

• One of the hardest conditions of boyhood is the almost continuous strain put upon the powers of invention by the constant and harassing necessity for explanations for every natural act.

  Booth Tarkington

  Boyhood, Natural, Invention

  Newton Booth Tarkington (2015). “Penrod”, p.31, Booklassic

  4 Copy quote

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