Pearl S. Buck Quotes

Let woman out of the home, let man into it, should be the aim of education. The home needs man, and the world outside needs woman.

All things are possible until they are proven impossible.

One faces the future with one's past.

The rich are always afraid.

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.

But what happens when her beauty is torn from her like a cover from a book? Will he care to read her then, although her pages speak of nothing but love for him?

When good people in any country cease their vigilance and struggle, then evil men prevail.

Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.

The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it.

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this:
A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.
To him... a touch is a blow,
a sound is a noise,
a misfortune is a tragedy,
a joy is an ecstasy,
a friend is a lover,
a lover is a god,
and failure is death.

The secret of joy in work is contained in one word-excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it.

If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.

I am always glad when any of my books can be put into an inexpensive edition, because I like to think that any people who might wish to read them can do so. Surely books ought to be within reach of everybody.

All things are possible until they are proved impossible and even the impossible may only be so, as of now.

"An intelligent, energetic, educated woman cannot be kept in four walls — even satin-lined, diamond-studded walls — without discovering sooner or later that they are still a prison cell."

(America's Medieval Women, Harper's Magazine, August 1938)