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“Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns. It's late afternoon - the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour) behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat using the last light to write to you.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh - I really think that requires spirit.
It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skillfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh - also if I win.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“I think that the most necessary quality for any person to have is imagination. It makes people able to put themselves in other people's places. It makes them kind and sympathetic and understanding.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way. The whole secret is in being pliable.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be for ever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I believe absolutely in my own free will and my own power to accomplish - and that is the belief that moves mountains. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“He and I always think the same things are funny, and that is such a lot; it's dreadful when two people's senses of humor are antagonistic. I don't believe there's any bridging that gulf!
And he is--Oh, well! He is just himself, and I miss him, and miss him, and miss him. The whole world seems empty and aching. I hate the moonlight because it's beautiful and he isn't here to see
it with me. But maybe you've loved somebody, too, and you know? If you have, I don't need to explain; if you haven't, I can't explain.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.

That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It's much more entertaining to live books than to write them.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“‎Be careful not to keep your eyes glued to detail. Stand far enough away to get a perspective of the whole.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It isn't the big troubles in life that require character. Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage, but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh—I really think that requires spirit!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“إن معظم الناس لا يعيشون، إنهم يتسابقون و يجرون، إنهم يحاولون الوصول إلى هدف يلوح بعيدا فى الأفق، ومن خلال حرارة الجرى ولهاث الأنفاس يفقدون كل قدرة على الرؤية الصحيحة للأرض الجميلة الهادئة التى يمرقون خلالها؛ ثم بعد ذلك فإن أول شىء يدركونه ويحسون به فعلا هو أنهم بلغوا أرذل العمر و أن التعب قد أضناهم ولا يهم بعد ذلك إذا كانوا قد بلغوا أهدافهم أم لا.
إننى قررت أن أجلس و أتمهل فى الطريق و أنهمك فى جمع وتكويم نتف من المتع الصغيرة”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I ate breakfast in the kitchen by candle-light, and then drove the five miles to the station through the most glorious October colouring. The sun came up on the way, and the swamp maples and dogwood glowed crimson and orange and the stone walls and cornfields sparkled with hoar frost; the air was keen and clear and full of promise. I knew something was going to happen. ”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Please be thinking about me. I'm quite lonely and I want to be thought about”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“... in spite of being happier than I ever dreamed I could be, I'm also soberer. The fear that something may happen to you rests like a shadow on my heart. Always before I could be frivolous and carefree and unconcerned, because I had nothing precious to lose. But now -- I shall have a Great Big Worry all the rest of my life. Whenever you are away from me I shall be thinking of all the automobiles that can run over you, or the signboards that can fall on your head or the dreadful, squirmy germs that you may be swallowing.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“She was by nature a sunny soul”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“What do you think is my favourite book? Just now, I mean; I change every three days. "Wuthering Heights." Emily Bronte was quite young when she wrote it, and had never been outside of Haworth churchyard. She had never known any men in her life; how could she imagine a man like Heathcliff?

I couldn't do it, and I'm quite young and never outside the John Grier Asylum - I've had every chance in the world. Sometimes a dreadful fear comes over me that I'm not a genius. Will you be awfully disappointed, Daddy, if I don't turn out to be a great author?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an "engaged" on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all the cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read. One book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and "Vanity Fair" and Kipling's "Plain Tales" and - don't laugh - "Little Women." I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on "Little Women." I haven't told anybody though (that would stamp me as queer). I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I have a terrible wanderthirst; the very sight of a map makes me want to put on my hat and take an umbrella and start. I
shall see before I die the palms and temples of the South.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Getting an education is an awfully wearing process!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“أعتقد يا والدي أن أهم صفات الإنسان المحببة أن يتميز بالخيال، فهذا يجعل الناس قادرين على وضع أنفسهم في موضع الآخرين، ومن ثم يشعرون بالعطف والحنان والفهم، وهذه الصفة -الخيال- يجب أن تزرع وتغرس في قلوب الصغار. لكن للأسف كان بيت جون جرير يطمس على الفور أية بادرة تظهر من هذه الصفة. الصفة الوحيدة المسموح لها أن تسود وتسيطر هي صفة الشعور بالواجب، أعتقد أنه من المكروه والمرذول أن تجعل الأطفال ينغمسون انغماسا كليا في تشرب هذه الصفة الأخيرة، لأنه من الواجب ومن الضروري أن يتصرفوا ويفعلوا كل شيء من خلال الحب والاقتناع.

انتظر حتى ترى ذلك الملجأ الذي أنوي أن أترأسه، هذا هو حلمي المفضل ولعبتي الذهنية الأولى عندما أذهب لأنام. لقد خططت لكل شيء حتى أصغر التفاصيل، مثل نظام الواجبات والملابس والمذاكرة والتسلية والعقاب. أيتامي سيكونون كغيرهم أشقياء، لكنهم -على أية حال- سيكونون في غاية السعادة.”
― جين وبستر, أبي طويل الساقين

“I am going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug my shoulders and laugh—also if I win.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“It seems to me that a man who can think straight along for forty-seven years without changing a single idea ought to be kept in a cabinet as a curiosity.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I went to bed last night utterly dejected; I thought I was never going to amount to anything, and that you had thrown away your money for nothing. But what do you think? I woke up this morning with a beautiful new plot in my head, and I've been going about all day planning my characters, just as happy as I could be. No one can ever accuse me of being a pessimist! If I had a husband and twelve children swallowed by an earthquake one day, I'd bob up smilingly the next morning and commence to look for another set. ~Jershua Abbott”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“One can't help thinking, Daddy, what a colourless life a man is forced to lead, when one reflects that chiffon and Venetian point and hand embroidery and Irish crochet are to him mere empty words. Whereas a woman- whether she is interested in babies or microbes or husbands or poetry or servants or parallelograms or gardens or Plato or bridge- is fundamentally and always interested in clothes.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“He has gone and we are missing him ! When you get accustomed to people or places or ways of living, and then have them snatched away, it does leave an empty, gnawing sort of sensation.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life- written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author? And suppose you could only read it on this condition: that you would never forget it, but would have to go through life knowing ahead of time exactly how everything you did would turn out, and forseeing to the exact hour the time you would die. How many people do you suppose you have the courage to read it then? Or how many could suppress their curiosity sufficiently to escape from reading it, even at the price of having to live without hope, without surprise? Life is monotonous enough at best; you have to eat and sleep about so often. But imagine how deadly monotonous it would be if nothing unexpected could happen between meals?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“اعتقد أن ما يهم الإنسان ليست الأفراح الكبرى لكن المسرات و المتع الصغيرة التى تصنع الشىء الكثير، لقد اكتشفت السر الحقيقى للسعادة يا والدى؛ وهو أن تعيش فى الآن فقط و تهتم باللحظة الحاضرة. لا تندم على الماضى أو تعمل حسابا للمستقبل، لكن عليك أن تحصل على أكثر ما تستطيع من هذه اللحظة الحاضرة التى تعيش فيها”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“This is an extra letter in the middle of the month because I'm rather lonely tonight. It's awfully stormy; the snow is beating against my tower. All the lights are out on the campus, but I drank black coffee and I can't go to sleep.

I had a supper party this evening consisting of Sallie and Julia and Leonora Fenton - and sardines and toasted muffins and salad and fudge and coffee. Julia said she'd had a good time, but Sallie stayed to help wash the dishes.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“If this book should ever roam, Box its ears and send it home.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“وهكذا هو الحال مع كل الناس،فأنا لا أتفق مع النظرية القائلة بأن المصائب والبلايا وخيبة الأمل المتكررة هى التى تخلق الشخصية القوية، إنهم السعداء فقط هم اللذين ينصخون بالحب والحنان..”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“إنني أنمو يومياً يا والدي وسوف أصبح شخصية جميلة، هذه الشخصية ربما تختفي وتضعف عندما تهب بعض الأعاصير وتثور بعض الدوامات، لكنها ستتألق وتشع نوراً عندما تشرق الشمس”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me look like a Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott - Oh, my!”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“أنا لا أفهم نصف الوقت ما تتكلم عنه البنات. فنكاتهنّ تبدو كأنها تتعلق بماضٍ شاركت كل منهن فيه بنصيب، ما عداي. إنني غريبة عن هذا العالم ولقد عانيت من ذلك طوال عمري.”
― جين وبستر, Daddy-Long-Legs

“إن المتاعب الكبرى التي نواجهنا في الحياة هي التي تحتاج إلى الأخلاق القويمة، وكل إنسان في إمكانه أن يقابل أية أزمة أو مصيبة بشجاعة، ولكن قل لي بالله عليك، كيف يواجه المرء المضايقات اليومية الصغيرة بروح مرحة منطلقة؟ أعتقد أن هذا يلزمه عزيمة من حديد”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The feeling often comes over me that I am not at all remarkable; it is fun to plan a career, but in all probability I shan't turn out a bit different from any other ordinary person.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I've read seventeen novels and bushels of poetry-- really necessary novels like Vanity Fair and Richard Feverel and Alice in Wonderland. Also Emerson's Essays and Lockhart's Life of Scott and the first volume of Gibbon's Roman Empire and half of Benvenuto Cellini's Life--wasn't he entertaining? He used to saunter out and casually kill a man before breakfast.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Don't you think it would be interesting if you could read the story of your life - written perfectly truthfully by an omniscient author?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I like to pretend that you belong to me, just to play with the idea, but of course I know you don't. I'm alone, really--with my back to the wall fighting the world--and I get sort of gaspy when I think about it. I put it out of my mind, and keep on pretending; but don't you see, Daddy?”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Behold me - a Sophomore! I came up last Friday, sorry to leave Lock Willow, but glad to see the campus again. It is a pleasant sensation to come back to something familiar. I am beginning to feel at home in college, and in command of the situation; I am beginning, in fact, to feel at home in the world - as though I really belonged to it and had not just crept in on sufferance.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“إنه من الخطورة بمكان أن تتباحث مع آل سامبل في الدين، فإلههم (وقد ورثوه كما هو من جدودهم البيوريتان) هو إله متعصب ظالم ومنتقم، وأشكر السماء لأنني لم أرث إلهي من أحد، فأنا حرة أستطيع أن أشكله كما أرغب، هو تعالى بالنسبة لي إله طيب عطوف واسع الصدر جداً ويفهم جيداً - هو أيضاً يملك إحساساً بالمرح !”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity - and a touch of wistfulness - the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring "Home" to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“The world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings. The world is full of happiness, and plenty to go round, if you are only willing to take the kind that comes your way.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“Perhaps when two people are exactly in accord, and always happy when together and lonely when apart, they ought not to let anything in the world stand between them.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“Do you want to know something? I have three pairs of kid gloves. I've had kid mittens before from the Christmas tree, but never real kid gloves with five fingers. I take them out and try them on every little while. It's all I can do not to wear them to classes.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“I've been hearing about Shakespeare all my life, but I had no idea he really wrote so well; I always suspected him of going largely on his reputation.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs

“think that every one, no matter how many troubles he may have when he grows up, ought to have a happy childhood to look back upon.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“Youth has nothing to do with birthdays, only with ALIVEDNESS of spirit, so even if your hair is grey, Daddy, you can still be a boy.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy Long Legs

“It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones--I've discovered the true secret of happiness, Daddy, and that is to live in the now. Not to be forever regretting the past, or anticipating the future; but to get the most that you can out of this very instant. It's like farming. You can have extensive farming and intensive farming; well, I am going to have intensive living after this. I'm going to enjoy every second, and I'm going to know I'm enjoying it while I'm enjoying it. Most people don't live, they just race. They are trying to reach some goal far away on the horizon, and in the heat of the going they get so breathless and panting that they lose all sight of the beautiful, tranquil country they are passing through; and then the first thing they know, they are old and worn out, and it doesn't make any difference whether they've reached the goal or not. I've decided to sit down by the way and pile up a lot of little happinesses.”
― Jean Webster, Daddy-Long-Legs