Josephine Winslow Johnson Professions : Novelist Born : June 20, 1910 Died : February 27, 1990 Browse All Authors Top 24 quotes by Josephine Winslow Johnson 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 unbearable earth heart 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 power men fall 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 blessed heart time Teach the legal rights of trees, the nobility of hills; respect the beauty of singularity, the value of solitude. Josephine Winslow Johnson solitude rights tree New gods arise when they are needed. Josephine Winslow Johnson arise needed god 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 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 volcanoes delight children 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 hate pride children The woods seemed all answer and healing and more than enough to live for. Josephine Winslow Johnson nature healing answers 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 The question we do not see when we are young is whether we own pride or are owned by it. Josephine Winslow Johnson pride humble young What is sanity, after all, except the control of madness? Josephine Winslow Johnson sanity madness 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 curves eye sleep ... love and fear increase together with a precision almost mathematical: the greater the love is then the greater the fear is. Josephine Winslow Johnson precision together love-is You can't be a little bit saintly any more than you can be a little bit pregnant. Josephine Winslow Johnson pregnant goodness littles 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 sick war years 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 mirrors lying Everything drops away, comes to be unimportant in the dark. It's like sleep almost. A freedom from self, from ugliness. Josephine Winslow Johnson self dark sleep 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 The dead elm leaves hung like folded bats. Josephine Winslow Johnson bats hung Similar Authors Adam Johnson novelist Ivan Goncharov novelist Binnie Kirshenbaum novelist Bruce Jay Friedman novelist Buchi Emecheta novelist Bryce Courtenay novelist All Authors
