James Whitcomb Riley Quotes

O, it sets my heart a clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, when the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock.

The ripest peach is highest on the tree.

When I see a bird that walks like a duck and swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, I call that bird a duck.

When you awaken some morning and hear that somebody or other has been discovered, you can put it down as a fact that he discovered himself years ago - since that time he has been toiling, working, and striving to make himself worthy of general discovery.

Somebody's sent a funny little valentine to me. It's a bunch of baby-roses in a vase of filigree, And hovering above them ... is a fairy cupid tangled in a scarf of poetry.

To all the little children:- The happy ones; and sad ones; the boisterous ones and glad ones; The good ones- Yes, the good ones, too; and all the lovely bad ones.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of Fancy, till in shadowy design
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

I so ill deserve the place his arms make for me.

Continuous, unflagging effort, persistence and determination will win. Let not the man be discouraged who has these.

It is no use to grumble and complain; It's just as cheap and easy to rejoice; When God sorts out the weather and sends rain - Why, rain's my choice.

Tell you what I like the best -
'Long about knee-deep in June,
'Bout the time strawberries melts
On the vine, - some afternoon
Like to jes' git out and rest,
And not work at nothin' else!

Think of him still as the same, I say, He is not dead, he is just - away.

I bless the hoss from hoof to head -
From head to hoof, and tale to mane! -
I bless the hoss, as I have said,
From head to hoof, and back again!