83 Quotes & Sayings By Pearl S Buck

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration. Pearl S. Buck

We must learn to live with danger, " he now said to Kino. "Do you mean the ocean and the volcano cannot hurt us if we are not afraid?" Kino asked. "No, " his father replied. "I did not say that. Ocean is there and volcano is there. It is true that on any day ocean may rise into storm and volcano may burst into flame. We must accept this fact, but without fear. We must say, 'Someday I shall die, and does it matter whether it is by ocean or volcano, or whether I grow old and weak?' " "I don't want to think about such things, " Kino said. "it is right for you not to think about them, " his father said. "Then do not be afraid. When you are afraid, you are thinking about them all the time. Enjoy life and don not fear death - that is the way of a good Japanese. Pearl S. Buck

He saw on the paper a picture of a man, white-skinned, who hung upon a crosspiece of wood. The man was without clothes except for a bit about his loins, and to all appearences he was dead, since his head drooped upon his shoulder and his eyes were closed above his bearded lips. Wang Lung looked at the pictured man in horror and with increasing interest. Pearl S. Buck

The mistakes of history bring relentless reprisals. Pearl S. Buck

To those at the great house it means nothing, this handful of earth, but to me it means how much! " (Buck, 57) Pearl S. Buck

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love. Pearl S. Buck

Wang Lung sat smoking, thinking of the silver as it had lain upon the table. It had come out of the earth, this silver, out of the earth that he ploughed and turned and spent himself upon. He took his life from the earth; drop by drop by his sweat he wrung food from it and from the food, silver. Each time before this that he had taken the silver out to give to anyone, it had been like taking a piece of his life and giving it to someone carelessly. But not for the first time, such giving was not pain. He saw, not the silver in the alien hand of a merchant in the town; he saw the silver transmuted into something worth even more than life itself - clothes upon the body of his son. Pearl S. Buck

This was his mind, a storehouse, a computer programmed to life, minute by minute, hour by hour, day and night. Pearl S. Buck

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself Pearl S. Buck

Fate is unalterable only in the sense that given a cause, a certain result must follow, but no cause is inevitable in itself, and man can shape his world if he does not resign himself to ignorance. Pearl S. Buck

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. Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so thatwithout the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him. He must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency he is not really alive unless he is creating. Pearl S. Buck

For he came to perceive that since people were his study, his teachers, the objects through which he could satisfy his persistent wonder about life itself, his own being among others, wherever he lived for the moment, there was his home. Pearl S. Buck

All things are possible until they are proven impossible. Pearl S. Buck

Of course imagination is the beginning of creation. Without imagination there can be no creation. Pearl S. Buck

A man is educated and turned out to work. But a woman is educated – and turned out to grass. Pearl S. Buck

Just as he lived with them alive, he will live with them dead. Someday he will accept their death as part of his life. He will weep no more. He will carry them in his memory and his thoughts. His flesh and blood are part of them. So long as he is alive, they, too, will live in him. The big wave came, but it went away. The sun shines again, birds sing, and earth flowers. Pearl S. Buck

Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself. Pearl S. Buck

However impatient she might be in the day, however filled with little sudden angers, at night she was all tenderness. Pearl S. Buck

The old deep sadness of life lay in the bottom of her heart and she knew it was there, but she would not allow herself to sink into it. Out of the dark and sullen bottom of a lake the lotus flowers bloomed upon its surface, and she would pluck the flowers. Pearl S. Buck

There was no need to hurry that future–yet the length of his own youth pressed upon him. Whatever he was to do next he wanted to begin now. But how to begin and on what? Pearl S. Buck

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that's where I renew my springs that never dry up. ~Pearl Buck Pearl S. Buck

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 Pearl S. Buck

The narrator refers to a character as "an oily scoundrel whose hands were heavy with the money that stuck to them. Pearl S. Buck

Out of the woman's great brown breast the milk gushed forth for the child, milk as white as snow, and when the child suckled at the one breast it flowed like a fountain from the other, ans she let it flow. There was more than enough for the child, greedy though he was, life enough for many children, and she let it flow out carelessly, conscious of her abundance. There was always more. Sometimes she lifted her breast and let it flow out upon the ground to save her clothing, and it sank into the earth and made a soft, dark, rich spot in the field. The child fat and good-natured and ate of the inexhaustible life his mother gave him. Pearl S. Buck

Wandering is never waste, dear boy, ' he said. 'While you wander you will find much to wonder about, and wonder is the first step to creation. Pearl S. Buck

Race prejudice is not only a shadow over the colored – it is a shadow over all of us, and the shadow is darkest over those who feel it least and allow its evil effects to go on. Pearl S. Buck

And listening to all the things they would do if they had these things, Wang Lung heard only of how much they would eat and sleep, and of what dainties they would eat that they had never tasted, and how they would gamble in this great tea shop and in that, and what pretty women they would buy for their lust, and above all, how none would ever work again, even as they rich man behind the wall never worked. Pearl S. Buck

To take each day as a separate page, to be read carefully, savoring all of the details, this is best for me, I think. Pearl S. Buck

Crowds moved wherever he went, across the bridge to Manhattan, in New York, wherever he went, life flowed and eddied, but he was not part of it. Pearl S. Buck

Whatever came to him was good. It was life. It was knowledge. Pearl S. Buck

Yes, she now believed that when her body died, her soul would go on. Gods she did not worship, and faith she had none, but love she had and forever. Love alone had awakened her sleeping soul and had made it deathless. She knew she was immortal. Pearl S. Buck

Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness. Pearl S. Buck

As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world. Pearl S. Buck

This anxiety to keep his father from anger was wearisome to him. Pearl S. Buck

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

Truth is always exciting. Speak it then life is dull without it. Pearl S. Buck

Introversion at least if extreme is a sign of mental and spiritual immaturity. Pearl S. Buck

In this unbelievable universe in which we live there are no absolutes. Even parallel lines reaching into infinity meet somewhere yonder. Pearl S. Buck

When we know what we want to prove we go out and find our facts. They are always there. Pearl S. Buck

Once the "what" is decided the "how" always follows. We must not make the "how" an excuse for not facing and accepting the "what." Pearl S. Buck

One faces the future with one's past. Pearl S. Buck

Some of the biggest failures I ever had were successes. Pearl S. Buck

It is better not to say "lend." There is only giving. Pearl S. Buck

I don't wait for moods. You accomplish nothing if you do that. Your mind must know it has got to get down to earth. Pearl S. Buck

I am comforted by life's stability by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. Pearl S. Buck

We need to restore the full meaning of that old word duty. It is the other side of rights. Pearl S. Buck

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness. Pearl S. Buck

We must have hope or starve to death. Pearl S. Buck

When hope is taken away from the people moral degeneration follows swiftly after. Pearl S. Buck

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death. Pearl S. Buck

The young do not know enough to be prudent and therefore they attempt the impossible-and achieve it generation after generation. Pearl S. Buck

Praise out of season or tactlessly bestowed can freeze the heart as much as blame. Pearl S. Buck

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

All things are possible until they are proved impossible-and even the impossible may only be so as of now. Pearl S. Buck

If you start to revise before you've reached the end, you're likely to begin dawdling with the revisions and putting off the difficult task of writing. Pearl S. Buck

Love dies only when growth stops. Pearl S. Buck

Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment. Pearl S. Buck

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

To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth. Pearl S. Buck

The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool. Pearl S. Buck

You can judge your age by the amount of pain you feel when you come in contact with a new idea. Pearl S. Buck

We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave. Pearl S. Buck

Our society must make it right and possible for old people not to fear the young or be deserted by them, for the test of a civilization is the way that it cares for its helpless members. Pearl S. Buck

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. Pearl S. Buck

A good marriage is one which allows for change and growth in the individuals and in the way they express their love. Pearl S. Buck

Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together. Pearl S. Buck

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. Pearl S. Buck

Love alone could waken love. Pearl S. Buck

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

Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up. Pearl S. Buck

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration. Pearl S. Buck

None who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the hope of freedom to those who are not free. Pearl S. Buck