Stephen Crane Quotes

The dead man and the living man exchanged a long look. Then the youth cautiously put one hand behind him and brought it against a tree. Leaning upon this he retreated, step by step, with his face still toward the thing. He feared that if he turned his back the body might spring up and stealthily pursue him.

"The impact of a dollar upon the heart"

The impact of a dollar upon the heart
Smiles warm red light
Sweeping from the hearth rosily upon the white table,
With the hanging cool velvet shadows
Moving softly upon the door.

The impact of a million dollars
Is a crash of flunkeys
And yawning emblems of Persia
Cheeked against oak, France and a sabre,
The outcry of old beauty
Whored by pimping merchants
To submission before wine and chatter.
Silly rich peasants stamp the carpets of men,
Dead men who dreamed fragrance and light
Into their woof, their lives;
The rug of an honest bear
Under the feet of a cryptic slave
Who speaks always of baubles,
Forgetting state, multitude, work, and state,
Champing and mouthing of hats,
Making ratful squeak of hats,
Hats.

A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.

If there is a witness to my little life, To my tiny throes and struggles, He sees a fool; And it is not fine for gods to menace fools.

Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.

Many a man ought to have a bath-tub larger than the boat which here rode upon the sea.

if a man loves a woman better than the whole universe, how much does he love the whole universe?

The wind had a voice as it came over the waves, and it was sadder than the end.

If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there But a vast blue, Echoless, ignorant — What then?

His feet where retarded.

None of them knew the color of the sky. Their eyes glanced level, and were fastened upon the waves that swept toward them. These waves were of the hue of slate, save for the tops, which were of foaming white, and all of the men knew the colors of the sea. The horizon narrowed and widened, and dipped and rose, and at all times its edge was jagged with waves that seemed thrust up in points like rocks.

Whereupon she went to work, having the feminine aversion of going to hell.

"A Man Adrift On A Slim Spar"

A man adrift on a slim spar
A horizon smaller than the rim of a bottle
Tented waves rearing lashy dark points
The near whine of froth in circles.
God is cold.

The incessant raise and swing of the sea
And growl after growl of crest
The sinkings, green, seething, endless
The upheaval half-completed.
God is cold.

The seas are in the hollow of The Hand;
Oceans may be turned to a spray
Raining down through the stars
Because of a gesture of pity toward a babe.
Oceans may become gray ashes,
Die with a long moan and a roar
Amid the tumult of the fishes
And the cries of the ships,
Because The Hand beckons the mice.
A horizon smaller than a doomed assassin's cap,
Inky, surging tumults
A reeling, drunken sky and no sky
A pale hand sliding from a polished spar.
God is cold.

The puff of a coat imprisoning air:
A face kissing the water-death
A weary slow sway of a lost hand
And the sea, the moving sea, the sea.
God is cold.

So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed.

You get so frightfully hungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming.