Quotes by Stephen Crane

He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.

When the prophet, a complacent fat man,Arrived at the mountain-topHe cried: Woe to my knowledge!I intended to see good white landsAnd bad black lands—But the scene is grey.

It was wrong to do this, said the angel.You should live like a flower,Holding malice like a puppy,Waging war like a lambkin.Not so, quoth the manWho had no fear of spirits;It is only wrong for angelsWho can live like the flowers,Holding malice like the puppies,Waging war like the lambkins.

It is perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.

Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, toeven the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.

His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.

Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderingly and quite reverently: Deh moon looks like hell, dont it?

None of them knew the color of the sky.

There was a man with tongue of woodWho essayed to sing,And in truth it was lamentable.But there was one who heardThe clip-clapper of this tongue of woodAnd knew what the manWished to sing,And with that the singer was content.

“When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: Why? He replied: Because no one admired me.”