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Edna Ferber

Edna Ferber Quotes

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Famous Edna Ferber Quotes

“To be alive is a fine thing. It is the finest thing in the world, though hazardous. It is a unique thing. It happens only once in a lifetime. To be alive, to know consciously that you are alive, and to relish that knowledge -- this is a kind of magic. Or it may be a kind of madness, exhilarating but harmless.”

KnowsWorldKindMayHappensAliveMagicFineUniqueMadnessLifetimeFinestRelishExhilaratingFine ThingsOnce In A LifetimeUnique Things
Book:A Kind of Magic: An Autobiography
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“I sat staring up at a shelf in my workroom from which thirty-one books identically dressed in neat dark green leather stared back at me with a sort of cold hostility like children who resent their parents. Don't stare at us like that! they said. Don't blame us if we didn't turn out to be the perfection you expected. We didn't ask to be brought into the world.”

IfsWorldChildrenSaidBookTurnsAsksParentDarkColdPerfectionBlameGreenExpectedStaringThirtySatThey SaidShelvesHostilityLeatherNeatResent
Book:A Kind of Magic
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“Only amateurs say that they write for their own amusement. Writing is not an amusing occupation. It is a combination of ditch-digging, mountain-climbing, treadmill and childbirth. Writing may be interesting, absorbing, exhilarating, racking, relieving. But amusing? Never!”

WritingMayInterestingMountainCombinationOccupationClimbingAmusementAmusingDiggingChildbirthAbsorbingExhilaratingMountain ClimbingTreadmills
Book:A Peculiar Treasure
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“Roast Beef, Medium, is not only a food. It is a philosophy. Seated at Life's Dining Table, with the menu of Morals before you, your eye wanders a bit over the entrees, the hors d'oeuvres, and the things a la though you know that Roast Beef, Medium, is safe and sane, and sure.”

KnowsPhilosophyEyeBitsMoralFoodSafeTablesMediumsWanderSaneBeefDiningMenusEntreesRoast BeefDining Table
Book:Roast Beef, Medium: The Business Adventures of Emma McChesney
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“America -- rather, the United States -- seems to me to be the Jew among the nations. It is resourceful, adaptable, maligned, envied, feared, imposed upon. It is warm-hearted, over-friendly; quick-witted, lavish, colorful; given to extravagant speech and gestures; its people are travelers and wanderers by nature, moving, shifting, restless; swarming in Fords, in ocean liners; craving entertainment; volatile. The chuckle among the nations of the world.”

PeopleWorldStatesSeemsAmericaMovingGivenNationsUnitedUnited StatesSpeechOceanJewEntertainmentWarmFriendlyGesturesTravelerRestlessCravingShiftingHeartedColorfulExtravagantEnviedWanderersResourcefulAdaptableChucklesWarm HeartedQuick Witted
Book:A Peculiar Treasure
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“Wasn't marriage, like life, unstimulating and unprofitable and somewhat empty when too well ordered and protected and guarded. Wasn't it finer, more splendid, more nourishing, when it was, like life itself, a mixture of the sordid and the magnificent; of mud and stars; of earth and flowers; of love and hate and laughter and tears and ugliness and beauty and hurt.”

WellsEarthHateStarsHurtMarriageTearsFlowerLaughterEmptyProtectedMagnificentMudUglinessMixturesSplendidLove And HateGuarded
Book:Show Boat ; So Big ; Cimarron: Three Living Novels of American Life
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