Dickinson Quotes

Common sense is almost as omniscient as God. ~ Emily Dickinson

Our little kinsmen after rain
In plenty may be seen,
a pink and pulpy multitude
The tepid ground upon;
A needless life if seemed to me
Until a little bird
As to a hospitality
Advanced and breakfasted. ~ Emily Dickinson

She had always loved the stars. But in the desert of winter it was impossible to forget that they were cold, and distant, and did not care. ~ Seth Dickinson

Hey, I fool the camera. I'm a liar, a magician. ~ Janice Dickinson

Beauty opened all the doors; it got me things I didn't even know I wanted, and things I certainly didn't deserve. ~ Janice Dickinson

I believe its a lifestyle choice and like any lifestyle choice it will be what you make of it and how fully you live and enjoy it. ~ Arlene Dickinson

I liked the way he handled himself in the kitchen. I like men who cook. Men who cook are generally good lovers. ~ Janice Dickinson

Tie the strings to my life, my Lord, Then I am ready to go! Just a look at the horses - Rapid! That will do! Put me in on the firmest side, So I shall never fall; For we must ride to the Judgment, And it's partly down hill. ~ Emily Dickinson

I cannot live with you, It would be life, And life is over there Behind the shelf ~ Emily Dickinson

So from the mould
Scarlet and Gold
Many a Bulb will rise --
Hidden away, cunningly,
From sagacious eyes.

So from Cocoon
Many a Worm
Leap so Highland gay,
Peasants like me --
Peasants like Thee,
Gaze perplexedly! ~ Emily Dickinson

How glad I am that spring has come, and how it calms my mind when wearied with study to walk out in the green fields and beside the pleasant streams in which South Hadley is rich! ... The older I grow, the more do I love spring and spring flowers. Is it not so with you? (May 16, 1848 to Abiah Root) ~ Emily Dickinson

I hope you're very careful working, eating and drinking when the heat is so great
there are temptations there which at home you are free from
beware the juicy fruits, and the cooling ades, and cordials, and do not eat ice-cream, it is so very dangerous. ~ Emily Dickinson

Saying nothing sometimes says the most. ~ Emily Dickinson

Television is a dirty business. To survive in it you have to be part weasel, part python, and part wolf. To succeed in it, you have to be 99.9 percent great white shark. The capacity for barefaced lying also comes in handy, particularly if you are freelance. ~ Matt Dickinson

The soul should always stand ajar. ~ Emily Dickinson

And then I heard them lift a box, And creak across my soul With those same boots of lead, again, Then space began to toll. ~ Emily Dickinson

How odd that girl's life looks Behind this soft eclipse! I think that earth seems so To those in heaven now. This being comfort, then That other kind was pain; But why compare? I'm wife! stop there! ~ Emily Dickinson

I'm addicted to cosmetic surgery! ~ Janice Dickinson

Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell. ~ Emily Dickinson

Climb aboard life's elevator, hit the "up" button, and see where it takes you. ~ Amy Dickinson

I was unnerved to learn in my twenties that the poems of Emily Dickinson that I had memorized as a girl were not the poems as she had written them. ~ Helen Vendler

Whenever a thing is done for the first time, it releases a little demon. ~ Emily Dickinson

Publication - is the auction of the mind ... ~ Emily Dickinson

Till it has loved, no man or woman can become itself. ~ Emily Dickinson

That no Flake of [snow] fall on you or them - is a wish that would be a Prayer, were Emily not a Pagan. ~ Emily Dickinson

An ear can break a human heart
As quickly as a spear,
We wish the ear had not a heart
So dangerously near. ~ Emily Dickinson

It is strange that the most intangible thing is the most adhesive. ~ Emily Dickinson

I tasted - careless - then -
I did not know the Wine
Came once a World - Did you?
Oh, had you told me so -
This Thirst would blister - easier - now ~ Emily Dickinson

When I take my hand out of this blanket," he thought, "my nail will be grown back, my hands will be clean. My body will be clean. I'll have on clean shorts, clean undershirt, a white shirt. A blue polka-dot tie. A gray suit with a stripe, and I'll be home, and I'll bolt the door. I'll put some coffee on the stove, some records on the phonograph, and I'll bolt the door. I'll read my books and I'll drink coffee and I'll listen to music, and I'll bolt the door. I'll open the window, I'll let in a nice, quiet girl
not Frances, not anyone I've ever known
and I'll bolt the door. I'll ask her to read some Emily Dickinson to me
that one about being chartless
and I'll ask her to read some William Blake to me
that one about the little lamb that made thee
and I'll bolt the door. She'll have an American voice, and she won't ask me if I have any chewing gum or bonbons, and I'll bolt the door. ~ J.D. Salinger

Mirth is the Mail of Anguish -- ~ Emily Dickinson

As the saying goes, I want to be the best-looking corpse there is. ~ Janice Dickinson

Dying is a wild night and a new road. ~ Emily Dickinson

Now, when I read, I read not,
For interrupting tears
Obliterate the etchings
Too costly for repairs. ~ Emily Dickinson

I don't profess to be profound; but I do lay claim to common sense. ~ Emily Dickinson

All promises are empty - until they are fulfilled. ~ Amy Dickinson

After you went, a low wind warbled through the house like a spacious bird, making it high but lonely. When you had gone the love came. I supposed it would. The supper of the heart is when the guest has gone. ~ Emily Dickinson

I sing to use the Waiting
My bonnet but to tie,
And close the door unto my house
No more to do have I

'Till his best step approaching,
We journey to the day,
And tell each other how we sung
To keep the dark away. ~ Emily Dickinson

What I treasure most at any moment is intimacy, surprise, a sense of mystery, wit, depth and love. A handful of cherished friends offer me this, and the occasional singer or film-maker or artist. But my most reliable sources of electricity are Henry David Thoreau, Shakespeare, Melville and Emily Dickinson. ~ Pico Iyer

Reinvention is the key to surviving this fashion industry. Madonna is the perfect example of reinvention. She has taken something that is so little and turned herself into a legend by simply never staying the same. ~ Janice Dickinson

Heavenly Father - take to thee The supreme iniquity Fashioned by thy candid Hand In a moment contraband - Though to trust us seem to us More respectful - We are Dust - We apologize to thee For thine own Duplicity. ~ Emily Dickinson

We both believe, and disbelieve a hundred times an hour, which keeps believing nimble. ~ Emily Dickinson

SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. ~ Emily Dickinson

I believe that everyone deserves love, and sometimes looking outside your own culture is a good way to find it. ~ Amy Dickinson

When I think of Emily Dickinson, there's not one particular poem of hers that jumps out, but I do have a very vivid image of an ill woman with giant eyes who wants to write about the sun exploding. ~ Mallory Ortberg

It's not what the Masquerade does to you that you should you fear, she wanted to tell Ake. It's what the Masquerade convinces you to do to yourself. ~ Seth Dickinson

Emily Dickinson once wrote, 'hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul,' and she was right, but she forgot to mention that despair is the thing with claws that tears out your heart. Kind of a major oversight there, Em." pg. 25 ~ Suzanne Sullivan

Do not do her work for her. Do not build her up in your mind. She's only one woman. ~ Seth Dickinson

Only flies have true halteres. In fact, the scientific term for flies, 'diptera,' means 'two wings.' Most insects, including bees, have two pairs of wings for a total of four. In flies, the hindwing pairs have been transformed through evolution into the halteres. ~ Michael Dickinson

Our cause is just. Our union is perfect. ~ John Dickinson

If I dismiss the ordinary - waiting for the special, the extreme, the extraordinary to happen - I may just miss my life ... To allow ourselves to spend afternoons watching dancers rehearse, or sit on a stone wall and watch the sunset, or spend the whole weekend rereading Chekhov stories - to know that we are doing what we're supposed to be doing - is the deepest form of permission in our creative lives. The British author and psychologist Adam Phillips has noted, 'When we are inspired, rather like when we are in love, we can feel both unintelligible to ourselves and most truly ourselves.' This is the feeling I think we all yearn for, a kind of hyperreal dream state. We read Emily Dickinson. We watch the dancers. We research a little known piece of history obsessively. We fall in love. We don't know why, and yet these moments form the source from which all our words will spring. ~ Dani Shapiro

The minister goes stiffly in As if the house were his, ~ Emily Dickinson

England are very light up front. Eriksson's decision not to include Jermaine Defoe can be declared an error of judgment, regardless of Rooney's situation. The Swede should have forgone one of his nine midfield players; much will have to go wrong for Jermaine Jenas to get a game. ~ Matt Dickinson

Opinion is a flitting thing, but the truth outlasts the sun. ~ Emily Dickinson

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity. ~ Emily Dickinson

Truth - is as old as God - ... ~ Emily Dickinson

A house you can rebuild; a bridge you can restring; a washed-out road you can fill in. But there is nothing you can do about a tree but mourn. ~ Louise Dickinson Rich

Beauty crowds me till I die. ~ Emily Dickinson

If you saw a bullet
hit a Bird - and he told you
he wasn't shot - you might weep
at his courtesy, but you would
certainly doubt his word -
One drop more from the gash
that stains your Daisy's
bosom - then would you believe? ~ Emily Dickinson

After all, when you're both striped of your dignity. circumspection seems pretty pointless. ~ Miranda Dickinson

Perspective is the enemy of long-lost love. ~ Amy Dickinson

The world is made of stories, which bind us all together, and impossible stories are the best of all, for they bind us in impossible ways. ~ Seth Dickinson

What shall we do my darling, when trial grows more, and more, when the dim, lone light expires, and it's dark, so very dark, and we wander, and know not where, and cannot get out of the forest - whose is the hand to help us, and to lead, and forever guide us? ... Where do you think I've strayed and from what new errand returned. I have come from to and fro, and walking up and down the same place that Satan hailed from when God asked where he'd been. ~ Emily Dickinson

The distance that the dead have gone Does not at first appear- Their coming back seems possible For many an ardent year. ~ Emily Dickinson

You must give and receive love only when doing so doesn't hurt others. That's the ethical path, and you should gain strength from walking it. ~ Amy Dickinson

Rendering thanks to my Creator for my existence and station among His works, for my birth in a country enlightened by the Gospel and enjoying freedom, and for all His other kindnesses, to Him I resign myself, humbly confiding in His goodness and in His mercy through Jesus Christ for the events of eternity. ~ John Dickinson

I'm nobody, who are you? ~ Emily Dickinson

Without any outward sign or motion, in the wreckage of herself, she donned her armor, made it firm around her heart. Raise her mask: a cold discipline, a steel beneath her skin.
Grow comfortable, she told herself. It will never come off. ~ Seth Dickinson

I do not think we have a right to withhold from the world a word or a thought any more than a deed which might help a single soul ... ~ Emily Dickinson

I've had a bit of experience at lots and lots of different arenas as it were, some of them completely creative, some of them quite technical. The interesting thing is, is that I found that the technical arenas actually are also very creative or can be very creative. ~ Bruce Dickinson

Sensuality does not wear a watch but she always gets to the essential places on time. She is adventurous and not particularly quiet. She was reprimanded in grade school because she couldn't sit still all day long. She needs to move. She thinks with her body. Even when she goes to the library to read Emily Dickinson or Emily Bronte, she starts reading out loud and swaying with the words, and before she can figure out what is happening, she is asked to leave. As you might expect, she is a disaster at office jobs.

Sensuality has exquisite skin and she appreciates it in others as well. There are other people whose skin is soft and clear and healthy but something about Sensuality's skin announces that she is alive. When the sun bursts forth in May, Sensuality likes to take off her shirt and feel the sweet warmth of the sun's rays brush across her shoulder. This is not intended as a provocative gesture but other people are, as usual, upset. Sensuality does not understand why everyone else is so disturbed by her. As a young girl, she was often scolded for going barefoot.

Sensuality likes to make love at the border where time and space change places. When she is considering a potential lover, she takes him to the ocean and watches. Does he dance with the waves? Does he tell her about the time he slept on the beach when he was seventeen and woke up in the middle of the night to look at the moon? Does he laugh and cry and notice how big the sky is?

It i ~ J. Ruth Gendler

I'm aiming to become the white Oprah. ~ Janice Dickinson

You cannot fold a flood and put it in a drawer, because the winds would find it out and tell your cedar floor. ~ Emily Dickinson

For Emily Dickinson every philosophical idea was a potential lover. Metaphysics is the realm of eternal seduction of the spirit by ideas. ~ Charles Simic

Spring's first conviction is a wealth beyond its whole experience. ~ Emily Dickinson

Here the people seem to possess the secret of tranquility and to live lives of more than surface contentment. ~ Louise Dickinson Rich

Better a woman of divided loyalties than one of no loyalty at all. Better a reluctant traitor than the terror of a true sociopath. ~ Seth Dickinson

I have a brother and sister; my mother does not care for thought, and father, too busy with his briefs to notice what we do. He buys me many books, but begs me not to read them, because he fears they joggle the mind. ~ Emily Dickinson

The hearts that never lean must fall. ~ Emily Dickinson

I don't know why in society when a woman demands perfection she is called crazy. ~ Janice Dickinson

I think of love, and you, and my heart grows full and warm, and my breath stands still. ~ Emily Dickinson

I'll tell you how the Sun rose. ~ Emily Dickinson

I have been a servant too long. I want to help make something free. ~ Seth Dickinson

I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size. ~ Emily Dickinson

You'll find it-when you try to die- The Easier to let go- For recollecting such as went- You could not spare-you know. ~ Emily Dickinson

Life is weird. And guess what makes it weird? People. ~ Amy Dickinson

A dim capacity for wings demeans the dress I wear. ~ Emily Dickinson

To lose what we have never owned might seem an eccentric bereavement, but Presumption has its own affliction as well as claim. ~ Emily Dickinson

Los Angeles fashion is the Starbucks of the modeling world. ~ Janice Dickinson

Angie Dickinson in 'Hollywood Wives' took me under her wing. If you look at that cast, I was definitely an 'outcast' ... so to speak. Most of them were of the same era, or just so much more experienced that I was. ~ Catherine Mary Stewart

The possible's slow fuse is lit by the Imagination. ~ Emily Dickinson

Forever - is composed of Nows - / 'Tis not a different time - / Except for Infiniteness - / And Latitude of Home - / From this - experienced Here - / Remove the Dates - to These - / Let Months dissolve in further Months - / And Years - exhale in Years - ~ Emily Dickinson

Hope is a thing with feathers... ~ Emily Dickinson

I'm a former bulimic myself and it's a horrible, horrible addiction. ~ Janice Dickinson

Until you have loved, you cannot become yourself. ~ Emily Dickinson

Once upon a time in the dead of winter in the Dakota Territory, Theodore Roosevelt took off in a makeshift boat down the Little Missouri River in pursuit of a couple of thieves who had stolen his prized rowboat. After several days on the river, he caught up and got the draw on them with his trusty Winchester, at which point they surrendered. Then Roosevelt set off in a borrowed wagon to haul the thieves cross-country to justice. They headed across the snow-covered wastes of the Badlands to the railhead at Dickinson, and Roosevelt walked the whole way, the entire 40 miles. It was an astonishing feat, what might be called a defining moment in Roosevelt's eventful life. But what makes it especially memorable is that during that time, he managed to read all of Anna Karenina. I often think of that when I hear people say they haven't time to read. ~ David McCullough

Remorse is memory awake,
Her companies astir,
A presence of departed acts
At window and at door.
Its past set down before the soul,
And lighted with a match,
Perusal to facilitate
Of its condensed despatch.
Remorse is cureless, - the disease
Not even God can heal;
For 't is His institution,
The complement of hell. ~ Emily Dickinson

Beauty is not caused, it is; Chase it and it ceases, Chase it not and it abides ... ~ Emily Dickinson

Belshazzar had a letter,
He never had but one;
Belshazzar's correspondent
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation's wall. ~ Emily Dickinson

I have a Bird in spring
Which for myself doth sing -
The spring decoys.
And as the summer nears -
And as the Rose appears,
Robin is gone.
Yet do I not repine
Knowing that Bird of mine
Though flown -
Learneth beyond the sea
Melody new for me
And will return. ~ Emily Dickinson

A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld, - The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies, - Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies. ~ Emily Dickinson