Dorothy Canfield Fisher Quotes

“Like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision.”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

She was horrified beyond words by what Judith had done, but Judith was her little sister. "Yes, ma'am," she said, to Miss Miller's question, speaking, for all her agitation, quickly and fluently as was her habit, though not very coherently. "Yes, ma'am, I know. Everybody was saying this morning that the Fingáls' mother was a negro, and so the girls weren't going to invite Camilla to the picnic, and it made Judith mad." "Why, _she_ didn't know Camilla very well, did she?" asked the teacher, astonished. "No, ma'am," said Sylvia, still speaking quickly, although the tears of fright were beginning to stand in her eyes. "It just made her mad because the girls weren't going to invite her because she didn't think it was anyhow her fault." "_Whose_ fault!" cried the teacher, completely lost. "Camilla's," quavered Sylvia, the tears beginning to fall. There was a pause. "_Well_--I _never_!" exclaimed the teacher, whose parents had come from New England. She was entirely at a loss to know how to treat this unprecedented situation, and like other potentates with a long habit of arbitrary authority, she covered her perplexity with a smart show of decision. "You children go right straight home, along out of the building this minute," she commanded. "You know you're not allowed to loiter around after school-hours. Sylvia and Judith, stay here. _I'm going to take you up to the Principal's office_." The girls and Jimmy Weaver ran clattering down the stairs, in an agreeably breathless state of excitement. In their opinion the awfulness of the situation had been adequately recognized by the teacher and signaled by the equally awful expedient of a visit to the Principal's office, the last resort in the case of the rarely occurring insubordinate boy. Because Miss Miller had not the least idea what to say in an event so far out of the usual routine, she talked a great deal during the trip through the empty halls and staircases up to the Principal's office on the top floor; chiefly to the effect that as many years as she had taught, never had she encountered such a bad little girl as Judith. Judith received this in stony silence, but Sylvia's tears fell fast.

“It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“Father sticks to it that anything that promises to pay too much cant help being risky.”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“Our imaginations seem to have been torn open . . . as by a charge of dynamite.”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our bu”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

“Who soweth good seed shall surely reap; The year grows rich as it groweth old, And lifes latest sands are its sands of gold!”

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

The minute your group gets so big you dont know anybody in it and they dont know you, theres hell to pay.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Whats the matter? asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered face.Why—why, said Elizabeth Ann, I dont know what I am at all. If Im second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. you arent any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. Youre just yourself, arent you? What difference does it make what grade youre in! And whats the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you dont know your multiplication table?

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Whats the matter? asked the teacher, seeing her bewildered fact.Why—why, said Elizabeth Ann, I dont know what I am at all. If Im second-grade arithmetic and seventh-grade reading and third-grade spelling, what grade am I?The teacher laughed at the turn of her phrase. you arent any grade at all, no matter where you are in school. Youre just yourself, arent you? What difference does it make what grade youre in! And whats the use of your reading little baby things too easy for you just because you dont know your multiplication table?

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

This time Elizabeth Ann didnt answer, because she herself didnt know what the matter was. But I do, and Ill tell you. The matter was that never before had she known what she was doing in school. She had always thought she was there to pass from one grade to another, and she was ever so startled to get a little glimpse of the fact that she was there to learn how to read and write and cipher and generally use her mind, so she could take care of herself when she came to be grown up. Of course, she didnt really know that till she did come to be grown up, but she had her first dim notion of it in that moment, and it made her feel the way you do when youre learning to skate and somebody pulls away the chair youve been leaning on and says, Now, go it alone!

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

If we could only give just once the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks vacation we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher

If we would only give just once the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks vacation we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.