Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Quote by Bess Streeter Aldrich

“How can I explain it to you, so you would understand? I’ve seen everything . . . and I’ve hardly been away from this yard. I’ve seen cathedrals in the snow on the Lombardy poplars. I’ve seen the sun set behind the Alps over there when the clouds have been piled up on the edge of the prairie. I’ve seen the ocean billows in the rise and the fall of the prairie grass.”

Quote by Bess Streeter Aldrich

Work

A Lantern in Her Hand

In this narrative, the protagonist's lantern becomes a metaphor for her life's journey, illuminating her path through adversity and change. The story delves into the complexities of human experience, highlighting the strength and determination of the central character as she navigates the challenges of her world. more

Author

Bess Streeter Aldrich
Bess Streeter Aldrich

Bess Streeter Aldrich was an American author born on February 17, 1881, and died on August 3, 1954. Known for her depiction of rural life in the American Midwest, her works, such as 'The Little City', have become classics of American literature. more

You May Also Like

“Perhaps we live in a wilder place than we give ourselves credit for. Scots tend to be hardy perennials. It's as if we've evolved to withstand the challenging nature of our own country. And what's more, we've worked out how to shape it into a force for good. Out of necessity our homes feature clever ways to keep the outside out and the inside warm. Scotland's oldest towerhouses were built with slits for windows not just as a defensive measure, but to protect residents from the elements. Out of problems came solutions, even beauty. Our foreparents thought to install open fires to heat their homes then toiled to make them easy on the eye. Intricately carved wooden fireplaces and elaborate hearths that referenced Scottish folklore followed.”

“Studies suggest that Scots spend less on home décor than anywhere else in the UK, but what we do spend big on is renovating and converting our properties instead of moving houses. Instead of moving home and incurring extra tax, it appears homeowners prefer to line the pockets of Scotland's architects. This suggests that instead of seeing the politics of home ownership and house building as a problem, we are choosing to turn it into an opportunity. This shift in thinking an help us live more comfortably, be more in touch with our individual needs, and in turn support Scottish practitioners.”

“Standing here now, looking across the valley toward the facing hill, Jess could imagine how homesick Isabel must have felt at times. She herself had been thinking of 'home' a lot. Home, she'd realized, wasn't a place or a time or a person, though it could be any and all those things; home was a feeling, a sense of being complete. The opposite of 'home' wasn't 'away,' it was 'lonely.' When someone said, 'I want to go home,' what they really meant was that they didn't want to feel lonely anymore.”

“To work your way forward when you are permanently lost means, yes, to be exhausted and adrift, a stranger in a strange land. But... it also means living in a state of endless discovery. The world unfurls itself anew each day with dawn's first cold breath on the city. You re-encounter what you are: lonely likely a body with a gift for burning.”