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Quotes by Gertrude Stein

Gertrude Stein

“Melanctha Herbert was always losing what she had in all the things she saw. Melanctha was always being left when she was not leaving others. Melanctha Herbert always loved too hard and much too often. She was always full with mystery and subtle movements and denials and vague distrusts and complicated disillusions. Then Melanctha would be sudden and impulsive and unbounded in some faith, and then she would suffer and be strong in her repression. Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet and always she could only find new ways to be in trouble.”

Sam then went back to his work as deck hand on a coasting steamer, and Rose stayed home in her house and sat and bragged to all her friends how nice it was to be married really to a husband. Life went on very smoothly with them all the year. Rose was lazy but not dirty and Sam was careful but not fussy, and then there was Melanctha to come in every day and help to keep things neat. When Rose's baby was coming to be born, Rose came to stay in the house where Melanctha Herbert lived just then, with a big good natured colored woman who did washing. Rose went there to stay, so that she might have the doctor from the hospital near by to help her have the baby, and then, too, Melanctha could attend to her while she was sick. Here the baby was born, and here it died, and then Rose went back to her house again with Sam. Melanctha Herbert had not made her life all simple like Rose Johnson. Melanctha had not found it easy with herself to make her wants and what she had, agree. Melanctha Herbert was always losing what she had in wanting all the things she saw. Melanctha was always being left when she was not leaving others. Melanctha Herbert always loved too hard and much too often. She was always full with mystery and subtle movements and denials and vague distrusts and complicated disillusions. Then Melanctha would be sudden and impulsive and unbounded in some faith, and then she would suffer and be strong in her repression. Melanctha Herbert was always seeking rest and quiet, and always she could only find new ways to be in trouble. Melanctha wondered often how it was she did not kill herself when she was so blue. Often she thought this would be really the best way for her to do. Melanctha Herbert had been raised to be religious, by her mother. Melanctha had not liked her mother very well. This mother, 'Mis' Herbert, as her neighbors called her, had been a sweet appearing and dignified and pleasant, pale yellow, colored woman. 'Mis' Herbert had always been a little wandering and mysterious and uncertain in her ways. Melanctha was pale yellow and mysterious and a little pleasant like her mother, but the real power in Melanctha's nature came through her robust and unpleasant and very unendurable black father. Melanctha's father only used to come to where Melanctha and her mother lived, once in a while. It was many years now that Melanctha had not heard or seen or known of anything her father did. Melanctha Herbert almost always hated her black father, but she loved very well the power in herself that came through him.

In the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling.

It is a sister and sister and a flower and a flower and a dog and a colored sky a sky colored grey and nearly that nearly that let. PEELED PENCIL, CHOKE. Rub her coke. IT WAS BLACK, BLACK TOOK. Black ink best wheel bale brown. Excellent not a hull house, not a pea soup, no bill no care, no precise no past pearl pearl goat. THIS IS THE DRESS, AIDER. Aider, why aider why whow, whow stop touch, aider whow, aider stop the muncher, muncher munchers. A jack in kill her, a jack in, makes a meadowed king, makes a to let. FOOD ROASTBEEF; MUTTON; BREAKFAST; SUGAR; CRANBERRIES; MILK; EGGS; APPLE; TAILS; LUNCH; CUPS; RHUBARB; SINGLE; FISH; CAKE; CUSTARD; POTATOES; ASPARAGUS; BUTTER; END OF SUMMER; SAUSAGES; CELERY; VEAL; VEGETABLE; COOKING; CHICKEN; PASTRY; CREAM; CUCUMBER; DINNER; DINING; EATING; SALAD; SAUCE; SALMON; ORANGE; COCOA; AND CLEAR SOUP AND ORANGES AND OATMEAL; SALAD DRESSING AND AN ARTICHOKE; A CENTRE IN A TABLE. ROASTBEEF. In the inside there is sleeping, in the outside there is reddening, in the morning there is meaning, in the evening there is feeling. In the evening there is feeling. In feeling anything is resting, in feeling anything is mounting, in feeling there is resignation, in feeling there is recognition, in feeling there is recurrence and entirely mistaken there is pinching. All the standards have steamers and all the curtains have bed linen and all the yellow has discrimination and all the circle has circling. This makes sand. Very well. Certainly the length is thinner and the rest, the round rest has a longer summer. To shine, why not shine, to shine, to station, to enlarge, to hurry the measure all this means nothing if there is singing, if there is singing then there is the resumption. The change the dirt, not to change dirt means that there is no beefsteak and not to have that is no obstruction, it is so easy to exchange meaning, it is so easy to see the difference. The difference is that a plain resource is not entangled with thickness and it does not mean that thickness shows such cutting, it does mean that a meadow is useful and a cow absurd.

“To write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write is to write”

“We are always the same age inside”

“I do want to get rich, but I never want to do what there is to do to get rich”

“When they are alone they want to be with others, and when they are with others they want to be alone. After all, human beings are like that.”

“It takes a lot of time to be a genius, you have to sit around so much doing nothing, really doing nothing.”

“Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

“There aint no answer. There aint gonna be any answer. There never has been an answer. Thats the answer.”

“Everyone gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense.”

“Youll be old and you never lived, and you kind of feel silly to lie down and die and to never have lived, to have been a job chaser and never have lived”

“Silent gratitude isnt very much to anyone.”

“The thing that differentiates man from animals is money”

“But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still dont get young men standing up and saying, How can I combine career and family?”

“Considering how dangerous everything is, nothing is really very frightening.”

“Money is always there but the pockets change”

“A vegetable garden in the beginning looks so promising and then after all little by little it grows nothing but vegetables, nothing, nothing but vegetables.”

“America is my country and Paris is my hometown.”

“The contemporary thing in art and literature is the thing which doesnt make enough difference to the people of that generation so that they can accept it or reject it.”

“The nineteenth century believed in science but the twentieth century does not.”

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