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James Branch Cabell

James Branch Cabell Books

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Beyond Life

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Jurgen

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The Certain Hour

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Domnei

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Figures of Earth

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“If we assiduously cultivate our powers of exaggeration, perhaps we, too, shall obtain the Paradise of Liars. And there Raphael shall paint for us scores and scores of his manifestly impossible pictures... and Shakespeare will lie to us of fabulous islands far past 'the still-vex'd Bermoothes,' and bring us fresh tales from the coast of Bohemia. For no one will speak the truth there, and we shall all be perfectly happy.”

IfsStillsPastLyingSpeakImpossiblePaintTalesIslandsParadiseScoreLiarsCoastFabulousExaggerationSpeak The TruthRaphaelVexBohemia
Author:James Branch Cabell
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“In the beginning the Gods made man, and fashioned the sky and the sea, And the earth's fair face for man's dwelling-place, and this was the Gods' decree: "Lo, We have given to man five wits: he discerneth folly and sin; He is swift to deride all the world outside, and blind to the world within: So that man may make sport and amuse Us, in battling for phrases or pelf, Now that each may know what forebodeth woe to his neighbor, and not to himself.”

KnowsMenWorldMayMadeEarthFacesGivenSportsSinFiveSeaSkyFairsBlindNeighborWitPhrasesFollyWoeDwellingDecreeDwelling Place
Book:The Essential James Branch Cabell Collection
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“A book , once it is printed and published, becomes individual. It is by its publication as decisively severed from its author as in parturition a child is cut off from its parent. The book "means" thereafter, perforce, both grammatically and actually, whatever meaning this or that reader gets out of it.”

MeanChildrenBookIndividualParentCuttingReaderPrintedPublication
Book:The Works of James Branch Cabell: Towsend of Lichfield
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“A man of genuine literary genius, since he possesses a temperament whose susceptibilities are of wider area than those of any other, is inevitably of all people the one most variously affected by his surroundings. And it is he, in consequence, who of all people most faithfully and compactly exhibits the impress of his times and his times' tendencies, not merely in his writings where it conceivably might be just predetermined affectation but in his personality.”

PeopleMenWritingMightPersonalityGeniusConsequenceAreasGenuineTendenciesAffectedImpressSurroundingsTemperamentExhibitsPredeterminedSusceptibility
Book:The Essential James Branch Cabell Collection
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“Here was the astounding fact: the race did go forward; the race did achieve; and in every way the race grew better. Progress through irrational and astounding blunders, whose outrageousness bedwarfed the wildest cliches of romance, was what Kennaston found everywhere. All this, then, also was foreplanned, just as all happenings at Storisende had been, in his puny romance; and the puppets, here to, moved as they thought of their own volition, but really in order to serve a denouement in which many of them had not any personal part or interest...”

WayFactsRomanceOrderFoundInterestRaceProgressAchieveGrewHappeningsMovedIrrationalClichePuppetsBlundersVolitionDenouement
Author:James Branch Cabell
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“I fight against the gluttony of time with so many very amusing weapons with gestures and with three attitudes and with charming phrases; with tears and with tinsel, and with sugar-coated pills, and with platitudes slightly regilded. Yes, and I fight him also with little mirrors wherein gleam confusedly the corruptions of lust, and ruddy loyalty, and a bit of moonshine, and the pure diamond of the heart's desire, and the opal cloudings of human compromise: but, above all, I fight that ravening dotard with the strength of my own folly.”

HumansHeartLittlesDesireFightingThreeBitsMy OwnAttitudeTearsPureWeaponsMirrorsCorruptionLoyaltyLustCompromisePhrasesFollySugarGesturesDiamondCharmingPillsAmusingGleamGluttonyPlatitudesOpalMoonshineTinsel
Book:The Witch-woman: A Trilogy about Her
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“For although this was a very heroic war, with a parade of every sort of high moral principle, and with the most sonorous language employed upon both sides, it somehow failed to bring about either the reformation or the ruin of humankind: and after the conclusion of the murdering and general breakage, the world went on pretty much as it has done after all other wars, with a vague notion that a deal of time and effort had been unprofitably invested, and a conviction that it would be inglorious to say so.”

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Book:Figures of Earth: A Comedy of Appearances
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“Everything in life is miraculous. For the sigil taught me that it rests within the power of each of us to awaken atwill from a dragging nightmare of life made up of unimportant tasks and tedious useless little habits, to see life as it really is, and to rejoice in its exquisite wonderfulness.”

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Book:The Cream of the Jest: The Lineage of Lichfield, Two Comedies of Evasion
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“Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; One thing unshaken stays: Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover; Whereby decays, Each thing save one thing: mid this strife diurnal, Of hourly change begot, Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal, And changes not; Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers, Find altered by-and-bye, When, with possession, time anon discovers, Trapped dreams must die, - For he that visions God, of mankind gathers, One manlike trait alone, And reverently imputes to Him a father's love for his son.”

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Author:James Branch Cabell
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“What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.”

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Book:The Essential James Branch Cabell Collection
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“The optimist sees a light at the end of the tunnel, the realist sees a train entering the tunnel, the pessimist sees a train speeding at him, hell for leather, and the machinist sees three idiots sitting on the rail track. "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds; the pessimist fears this is true."”

WorldEndsLightThreeHellSittingTrainTrackIdiotCynicismIdealismOptimistEnteringTunnelsLeatherPessimistRealistRailSpeedingLight At The End Of The TunnelEnd Of The Tunnel
Author:James Branch Cabell
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