Josephine Winslow Johnson Quotes

• The earth was overwhelmed with beauty and indifferent to it, and I went with a heart ready to crack for its unbearable loveliness.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Heart, Earth, Unbearable

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.114, Feminist Press at CUNY

  47 Copy quote

• We are dying of preconceptions, outworn rules, decaying flags, venomous religions, and sentimentalities. We need a new world. We've wrenched up all the old roots. The old men have no roots. They don't know it. They just go on talking and flailing away and falling down on the young with their tons of dead weight and their power. For the power is still there, in their life-in-death. But the roots are dead, and the land is poisoned for miles around them.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Fall, Power, Men

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1996). “The Inland Island”, Writer's Digest Books

  12 Copy quote

• Teach the legal rights of trees, the nobility of hills; respect the beauty of singularity, the value of solitude.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Rights, Tree, Solitude

  8 Copy quote

• New gods arise when they are needed.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  God, Arise, Needed

  7 Copy quote

• The question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride or are owned by it.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Humble, Pride, Young

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1963). “The dark traveler”

  7 Copy quote

• And blessed are they who have learned the rhythms of the invisible clock whose hours and minutes are immense and soundless. The great clock of the seasons and the years, and the small clock of the intuition, whose timing is guided by the heart.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Time, Blessed, Heart

  6 Copy quote

• What is sanity, after all, except the control of madness?

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Madness, Sanity

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.95, Feminist Press at CUNY

  7 Copy quote

• Freedom is no guarantee of anything. It is only defined today by what it is not. What it is takes forms strange and of infinite variety - bizarre as in a masquerade.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Freedom, Guarantees, Today

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1996). “The Inland Island”, Writer's Digest Books

  8 Copy quote

• Old people who live too long come to resemble turtles. As though time turned in a curve, and down they go to the reptiles again. Not the little wet naked frog they were born. But the tortoise. Cold eyes, sagging circles of skin, the nose becomes beak. The shell of sleep.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Sleep, Eye, Curves

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1996). “The Inland Island”, Writer's Digest Books

  7 Copy quote

• There is 'a time to be born' - and born again, free of accumulated, encrusted sores of fears and prejudices, old hates, of cancerous wounds, old prides. And there is a time to die - a time for the blue, unburied child of our young years to be decently interred - and to get on with the living.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Children, Hate, Pride

  7 Copy quote

• The woods seemed all answer and healing and more than enough to live for.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Nature, Healing, Answers

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.68, Feminist Press at CUNY

  7 Copy quote

• To have children is a double living, the earthly fountain of youth, a continual fresh delight, a volcano as well as a fountain, and also a source of weariness beyond description.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Children, Volcanoes, Delight

  8 Copy quote

• You can't be a little bit saintly any more than you can be a little bit pregnant.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Littles, Goodness, Pregnant

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1996). “The Inland Island”, Writer's Digest Books

  7 Copy quote

• pacifists lead a lonely life. Not even gathering together can take the place of that vast, warm sun of approval that is shed on motherhood, on law-abiding, on killing, and on making money. Someday will we come into our own? Well, motherhood may move into the shade. Law-abiding is going through a trauma. But killing and making money are good for a long, long time.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Lonely, War, Moving

  6 Copy quote

• Everything drops away, comes to be unimportant in the dark. It's like sleep almost. A freedom from self, from ugliness.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Sleep, Dark, Self

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.103, Feminist Press at CUNY

  7 Copy quote

• things that have cost more than they're worth leave a bitter taste. A taste of salt and sweat.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Sweat, Cost, Taste

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.37, Feminist Press at CUNY

  6 Copy quote

• The writer's advantage, in some respects, over those whose expression lies in other fields, is in the privilege of a double - sometimes a triple - living. Pleasure multiplied in the mirrors of words, and pain siphoned off in words.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Pain, Lying, Mirrors

  6 Copy quote

• I am sick of war. Every woman of my generation is sick of war. Fifty years of war. Wars rumored, wars beginning, wars fought, wars ending, wars paid for, wars endured.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  War, Years, Sick

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1996). “The Inland Island”, Writer's Digest Books

  6 Copy quote

• The dead elm leaves hung like folded bats.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Bats, Hung

  4 Copy quote

• ... love and fear increase together with a precision almost mathematical: the greater the love is then the greater the fear is.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Love Is, Together, Precision

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.71, Feminist Press at CUNY

  4 Copy quote

• Lord make me satisfied with small things. Make me content to live on the outside of life. God make me love the rind!

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Lord, Satisfied, Small Things

  4 Copy quote

• I cannot believe this is the end. Nor can I believe that death is more than the blindness of those living. And if this is only the consolation of a heart in its necessity, or that easy faith born of despair, it does not matter, since it gives us courage somehow to face the mornings. Which is as much as the heart can ask at times.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Morning, Believe, Heart

  6 Copy quote

• in mad people fear goes on constantly, night and day, wearing one ditch in the mind that all thoughts must travel in.

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Fear, Night, People

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.68, Feminist Press at CUNY

  4 Copy quote

• The things we felt most are hardest to put into words. Hate is always easier to speak of than love. How shall I make love go through the sieve of words and come out something besides a pulp?

  Josephine Winslow Johnson

  Hate, Making Love, Speak

  Josephine Winslow Johnson (1934). “Now in November”, p.102, Feminist Press at CUNY

  4 Copy quote

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