Carolina QuotesGertrude knew better than this, of course, but we all know better than we know better, or act as if we did.
Randall Jarrell Carolinian
Source
Chapter 3, p. 100
- work
- Pictures from an Institution (1954) [novel]
- year
- 1954
- locator
- p. 100
Cite this record
“Gertrude knew better than this, of course, but we all know b…” Randall Jarrell. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-8E338AB942. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/8e338ab942
More from Randall Jarrell
His eye a ring inside a ring inside a ring That leers up, joyless, vile, in meek obscenity — This is the devil. Flesh to flesh, he bleats The herd back to the pit of being.
Animals, these beings trapped As I am trapped but not, themselves, the trap, Aging, but without knowledge of their age, Kept safe here, knowing not of death, for death — Oh, bars of my own body, open, open!The world goes by my cage and never sees me.
I have trouble knowing what to do at parties. Prisoners tame mice, or make rings out of spoons: I analyze people’s handwriting...or else ask you to tell me what you read when you were a child. (People speak unusually well of the books of their childhood, don’t they? Or is this one more life-giving illusion?) I love to see a hard eye grow soft over Little Women... And, I’ve found, there’s no children’s book so bad that I mind your having liked it: about the tastes of dead children there is no disputing.