Jessamyn West

Author

1902-07-18

Books by Jessamyn West

The Friendly Persuasion
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Great Short Stories of the World
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Except for me and thee
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Quotes by Jessamyn West

Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
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Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.
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A big iron needle stitching the country together.
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Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.
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A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.
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The West is color. Its colors are animal rather than vegetable, the colors of earth and sunlight and ripeness.
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Sleeplessness is a desert without vegetation or inhabitants.
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It is very east to forgive others their mistakes; it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.
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A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever.
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There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive.
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It is very easy to forgive others their mistakes. It takes more guts and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.
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Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.
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The past is almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.
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I seem to be the only person in the world who doesn't mind being pitied. If you love me, pity me. The human state is pitiable: born to die, capable of so much, accomplishing so little; killing instead of creating, destroying instead of building, hating instead of loving. Pitiful, pitiful.
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At fourteen, you don't need sickness or death for tragedy.
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There is no royal path to good writing; and such paths as exist do not lead through neat critical gardens, various as they are, but through the jungles of self, the world, and of craft.
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