James Branch Cabell quotes - page 2

And one would worship a woman whom all perfections dower, But the other smiles at transparent wiles; and he quotes from Schopenhauer. Thus two by two we wrangle and blunder about the earth, And that body we share we may not spare; but the Gods have need of mirth. (James Branch Cabell)
Time changes all things and cultivates even in herself an appreciation of irony, - and, therefore, why shouldn't I have changed a trifle?
James Branch Cabell
American literature was enriched with Men Who Loved Allison.... Of the actual and eventual worth of this romance I cannot pretend to be an unprejudiced judge. The tale seems to me one of those many books which have profited, very dubiously indeed, by having obtained, in one way of another, the repute of being indecent.
James Branch Cabell
Life is very marvelous ... and to the wonders of the earth there is no end appointed.
James Branch Cabell
I take it that I must be the eternal playfellow of time. For piety and common-sense and death are rightfully time's toys; and it is with these three that I divert myself.
James Branch Cabell
I have read that the secret of gallantry is to accept the pleasures of life leisurely, and its inconveniences with a shrug.
James Branch Cabell
Eh, Manuel, and will you re-model the world?" "Who knows?" says Manuel, in the high pride of his youth. "At all events, I do not mean to leave it unaltered.
James Branch Cabell
From the dawn of the day to the dusk he toiled, Shaping fanciful playthings, with tireless hands, - Useless trumpery toys; and, with vaulting heart, Gave them unto all peoples, who mocked at him, Trampled on them, and soiled them, and went their way.
James Branch Cabell
The Dream, as I now know, is not best served by making parodies of it, and it does not greatly matter after all whether a book be an epic or a directory. What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.
James Branch Cabell
Why is the King of Hearts the only one that hasn't a moustache?
James Branch Cabell
Patriotism is the religion of hell. (James Branch Cabell)
No lady is ever a gentleman.
James Branch Cabell
A book, once it is printed and published, becomes individual.
James Branch Cabell
What really matters is that there is so much faith and love and kindliness which we can share with and provoke in others, and that by cleanly, simple, generous living we approach perfection in the highest and most lovely of all arts. . . . But you, I think, have always comprehended this.
James Branch Cabell
Dreaming a dream to prize, Is wishing ghosts to rise; And, if I had the spell To call the buried - well, Which one would I?
James Branch Cabell
Kennaston no longer thought of himself as a man of flesh-and-blood moving about a world of his compeers. Or, at least, that especial aspect of his existence was to him no longer a phase of any particular importance.
James Branch Cabell
I am content. While my shrewd fellows rode about the world to seek and to attain power and wisdom, I have elected, as and unpractical realist, to follow after beauty.
James Branch Cabell
You embody all that I was ever able to conceive of beauty and fearlessness and strange purity. Therefore it is evident I do not see in you merely Count Emmerick's third sister, but, instead, that ageless lovable and loving woman long worshipped and sought everywhere in vain by all poets.
James Branch Cabell
They tell me that truth lies somewhere at the bottom of a well, and at virtually the door of our home is a most notable if long dried well. Our location is thus quite favorable, if we but keep patience.
James Branch Cabell
Now, the redemption which we as yet await (continued Imlac), will be that of Kalki, who will come as a Silver Stallion: all evils and every sort of folly will perish at the coming of this Kalki: true righteousness will be restored, and the minds of men will be made as clear as crystal.
James Branch Cabell
The comedy is always the same. In the first act the hero imagines a place where happiness exists. In the second he strives towards that goal. In the third he comes up short or what amounts to the same thing he achieves his goal only to find that happiness lies a little further down the road. (James Branch Cabell)
Hey, my masters, lords and brothers, ye that till the fields of rhyme, Are ye deaf ye will not hearken to the clamor of your time?
James Branch Cabell
Coth admitted that, say what you might as to the Manuel who had really lived, the squinting rascal did as a rule know what he was talking about.
James Branch Cabell
Tell the rabble my name is Cabell.
James Branch Cabell
You are now a famous champion, that has crowned with victory a righteous cause for which many stalwart knights and gallant gentlemen have made the supreme sacrifice, because they knew that in the end the right must conquer. Your success thus represents the working out of a great moral principle, and to explain the practical minutiae of these august processes is not always quite respectable.
James Branch Cabell