Stephen Crane Quotes

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

His feet where retarded.

Whatever he had learned of himself was of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.

I heard thee laugh,
And in this merriment
I defined the measure of my pain;
I knew that I was alone,
Alone with love,
Poor shivering love,
And he, little sprite,
Came to watch with me,
And at midnight
We were like two creatures by a dead camp-fire.

The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a grave.

In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.

Two or three angels
Came near to the earth.
They saw a fat church.
Little black streams of people
Came and went in continually.
And the angels were puzzled
To know why the people went thus,
And why they stayed so long within.

ONCE, I KNEW A FINE SONG, — IT IS TRUE, BELIEVE ME, — IT WAS ALL OF BIRDS,
AND I HELD THEM IN A BASKET;
WHEN I OPENED THE WICKET,
HEAVENS! THEY ALL FLEW AWAY.
I CRIED, ’COME BACK, LITTLE THOUGHTS!’
BUT THEY ONLY LAUGHED.
THEY FLEW ON
UNTIL THEY WERE AS SAND
THROWN BETWEEN ME AND THE SKY.

"Little Birds of the Night"

LITTLE birds of the night
Aye, they have much to tell
Perching there in rows
Blinking at me with their serious eyes
Recounting of flowers they have seen and loved
Of meadows and groves of the distance
And pale sands at the foot of the sea
And breezes that fly in the leaves.
They are vast in experience
These little birds that come in the night

The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin.

A dog, a woman, an' a walnut tree, Th' more yeh beat 'em, th' better they be! That's like us.

Thoughts of his comrades came to him. The brittle blue line had withstood the blows and won. He grew bitter over it. It seemed that the blind ignorance and stupidity of those little pieces had betrayed him. He had been overturned and crushed by their lack of sense in holding the position, when intelligent deliberation would have convinced them that it was impossible. He, the enlightened man who looks afar in the dark, had fled because of his superior perceptions and knowledge. He felt a great anger against his comrades. He knew it could be proved that they had been fools.

None of them knew the color of the sky.

The red sun was pasted in the sky like a wafer.

He suddenly lost concern for himself, and forgot to look at a menacing fate. He became not a man but a member. He felt that something of which he was a part — a regiment, an army, a cause, or a country — was in a crisis. He was welded into a common personality which was dominated by a single desire. For some moments he could not flee no more than a little finger can commit a revolution from a hand.