Stephen Crane Quotes

Two or three angelsCame near to the earth.They saw a fat church.Little black streams of peopleCame and went in continually.And the angels were puzzledTo know why the people went thus,And why they stayed so long within.

~ Stephen Crane

When the suicide arrived at the sky, the people there asked him: Why? He replied: Because no one admired me.

~ Stephen Crane

Tell her thisAnd more,—That the king of the seasWeeps too, old, helpless man.The bustling fatesHeap his hands with corpsesUntil he stands like a childWith surplus of toys.

~ Stephen Crane

It perhaps might be said--if any one dared--that the most worthless literature of the world has been that which has been written by the men of one nation concerning the men of another.

~ Stephen Crane

A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.

~ Stephen Crane

If I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned—if I am going to be drowned, why, in the name of the seven mad gods who rule the sea, was I allowed to come thus far and contemplate sand and trees?

~ Stephen Crane

It was not well to drive men into final corners, at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.

~ Stephen Crane

He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid.

~ Stephen Crane

The ranks opened covertly to avoid the corpse. The invulnerable dead man forced a way for himself. The youth looked keenly at the ashen face. The wind raised the tawny beard. It moved as if a hand were stroking it. He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare, the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.

~ Stephen Crane

These men were born to drill and die.            Point for them the virtue of the slaughter,            Make plain to them the excellence of killing            And a field where a thousand corpses lie.

~ Stephen Crane

But as the girl timidly accosted him, he gave a convulsive movement and saved hisrespectability by a vigorous side-step. He did not risk it to save a soul. For how was he toknow that there was a soul before him that needed saving?

~ Stephen Crane

This poor gambler isn’t even a noun. He is kind of an adverb.

~ Stephen Crane

Every sin is the result of a colaboration

~ Stephen Crane

A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.

~ Stephen Crane

The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.

~ Stephen Crane

It appeared that the swift wings of their desires would have shattered against the iron gates of the impossible.

~ Stephen Crane

Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.

~ Stephen Crane

A learned man came to me once.He said, I know the way, -- come.And I was overjoyed at this.Together we hastened.Soon, too soon, were weWhere my eyes were useless,And I knew not the ways of my feet.I clung to the hand of my friend;But at last he cried, I am lost.

~ Stephen Crane

The maddened four men followed frantically, for it is better to be in the presence of the awful than only within hearing. (The Black Dog)

~ Stephen Crane

He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.

~ Stephen Crane

When the prophet, a complacent fat man,Arrived at the mountain-topHe cried: Woe to my knowledge!I intended to see good white landsAnd bad black lands—But the scene is grey.

~ Stephen Crane

It is perhaps, plausible that a man in this situation, impressed with the unconcern of the universe, should see the innumerable flaws of his life and have them taste wickedly in his mind and wish for another chance.

~ Stephen Crane

Sometimes, the most profound of awakenings come wrapped in the quietest of moments.

~ Stephen Crane

When it occurs to a man that nature does not regard him as important, and that she feels she would not maim the universe by disposing of him, he at first wishes to throw bricks at the temple, and he hates deeply the fact that there are no bricks and no temples.

~ Stephen Crane

The injured captain, lying in the bow, was at this time buried in that profound dejection and indifference which comes, temporarily at least, toeven the bravest and most enduring when, willy nilly, the firm fails, the army loses, the ship goes down.

~ Stephen Crane

His face had been twisted into an expression of every agony he had imagined for his friend.

~ Stephen Crane

Nevertheless, he had, on a certain star-lit evening, said wonderingly and quite reverently: Deh moon looks like hell, don't it?

~ Stephen Crane

A man feared that he might find an assassin,Another that he might find a victim.One was more wise than the other.

~ Stephen Crane

None of them knew the color of the sky.

~ Stephen Crane

There was a man with tongue of woodWho essayed to sing,And in truth it was lamentable.But there was one who heardThe clip-clapper of this tongue of woodAnd knew what the manWished to sing,And with that the singer was content.

~ Stephen Crane