Gertrude Stein
183 quotes
Biography
"A writer should write with his eyes and a painter paint with his ears."
"One must dare to be happy."
"We are always the same age inside."
"Before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded."
"You look ridiculous if you danceYou look ridiculous if you don't danceSo you might as welldance."
"You will write if you will write without thinking of the result in terms of a result, but think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say that creation must take place between the pen and the paper, not before in a thought or afterwards in a recasting... It will come if it is there and if you will let it come."
"it is nice that nobody writes as they talk and that the printed language is different from the spoken otherwise you could not lose yourself in books and of course you do you completely do."
"In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling."
"I certainly do care for you Jeff Campbell less than you are always thinking and much more than you are ever knowing"
"A FEATHER.A feather is trimmed, it is trimmed by the light and the bug and the post, it is trimmed by little leaning and by all sorts of mounted reserves and loud volumes. It is surely cohesive."
"From the very nature of progress, all ages must be transitional. If they were not, the world would be at a stand-still and death would speedily ensue. It is one of the tamest of platitudes but it is always introduced by a flourish of trumpets."
"The whole duty of man consists in being reasonable and just... I am reasonable because I know the difference between understanding and not understanding and I am just because I have no opinion about things I don’t understand."
"A beauty is not suddenly in a circle. It comes with rapture. A great deal of beauty is rapture. A circle is a necessity. Otherwise you would see no one. We each have our circle."
"It is always a mistake to be plain-spoken."
"No sense in no sense innocence of what of not and what of delight. In no sense innocence in no sense and what in delight and not, in no sense innocence in no sense no sense what, in no sense and delight, and in no sense and delight and not in no sense and delight and not, no sense in no sense innocence and delight."
"Let me recite what history teaches. History teaches."
"One does not get better but different and older and that is always a pleasure."
"All of you young people who served in the war. You are a lost generation... You have no respect for anything. You drink yourselves to death."
"When I sleep I sleep and do not dream because it is as well that I am what I seem when I am in my bed and dream."
"The deepest thing in any one is the conviction of the bad luck that follows boasting."
"All the world knows how to cry but not all the world knows how to sigh. Sighing is extra."
"I just tell you and though I dont sound like it I've got plenty of sense, there aint any answer, there aint going to be any answer, there never has been any answer, that’s the answer."
"Do you know because I tell you so, or do you know, do you know."
"Ladies there is no neutral position for us to assume."
"Communists are people who fancied that they had an unhappy childhood."