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In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler’s dream.

Bess Streeter Aldrich

It was true, she thought, that the big things awe us but the little things touch us.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Bigs Little Things
not all clever words are true. … And inversely most things that are true are not clever.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Clever Cleverness Inversely
Regardless of the popular literary trend of the times, write the thing which lies close to your heart.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Heart Lying Writing
In 1846 the prairie town of Oak River existed only in a settler’s dream.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Book Dream Rivers
Except for our higher order of minds we are like the little moles under the earth carrying out blindly the work of digging, thinking our own dark passage-ways constitute all there is to the world.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Dark Order Thinking
thoughts are acrobats, agile and quite often untrustworthy.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Acrobats Quite Untrustworthy
It takes a small town to keep you humble.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Humble Keep Small Towns
Things last so much longer than people.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Lasts Longer People
Biggest affirmative argument I know in favor of ‘If a man die, shall he live again?’ is just the way you feel inside you that nothin’ can stop you from livin’ on.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Favors Living Men Way
Sometime in their lives, everybody wanted to go home.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Home Sometimes Wanted
You have to dream things out. It keeps a kind of an ideal before you. You see it first in your mind and then you set about to try and make it like the ideal. If you want a garden,-why, I guess you’ve got to dream a garden.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Dream Garden Mind
You wouldn’t think that sorrow could be a light, would you, dearie? But it can. And then after that, service lights it. Yes. . . . I think that is what love is to a woman . . . a lantern in her hand.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Hand Love Sorrow Woman
Junior was eleven. The statement is significant. There are a few peevish people in the world who believe that all eleven-year-old boys ought to be hung. Others, less irritable, think that gently chloroforming them would seem more humane.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Believe Boys Couple
When I was young I had no means or time, and now I have the means and time, I have no youth.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Irony Mean Youth
Our souls may all be equal in the sight of the Lord, but our gumption and ingenuity ain’t. So the results of man’s labor will never be equal.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Equality Labor Men Sight
I think that love is more like a light that you carry. At first childish happiness keeps it lighted and after that romance. Then motherhood lights it and then duty . . . and maybe after that sorrow.
BESS STREETER ALDRICH

Love Motherhood Thinking