WIST Quotations

Lane, Rose Wilder -- Letter to Dorothy Thompson (Jan 1927)

Dave — Mon, 20 Jun 2022 22:22:32 +0000

We are all so clumsy, my dear, and words are all we have, poor signals like bonfires and flags trying to express what shipwreck is.

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist
Letter to Dorothy Thompson (Jan 1927)
(Source)

In William Holtz, ed., Dorothy Thompson and Rose Wilder Lane: Forty Years of Friendship (1991)

Lane, Rose Wilder -- Letter to Guy Moyston (1920s)

Dave — Fri, 24 Jun 2022 19:46:01 +0000

I somehow always have this idea that as soon as I can get through this work that’s piled up ahead of me, I’ll really write a beautiful thing. But I never do.

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist
Letter to Guy Moyston (1920s)
(Source)

Quoted in William V. Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House, ch. 8, sec. 2 (1993).

Lane, Rose Wilder -- Letter to Guy Moyston (25 Jun 1925)

Dave — Thu, 30 Jun 2022 15:51:23 +0000

The reason I can’t take myself seriously as a “creative artist,” Guy dear, is because I’m not one. It’s not somehow not in me to bear very patiently with my own mediocrity. If I can’t — and I can’t — be Shakespeare or Goethe, I’d rather raise good cabbages. And that is why I would not write at all, except that there is more money in writing than in cabbages, not only more money, but more freedom. […] This is why I’m not “filled with my art.” I ain’t got no art. I’ve got only a kind of craftsman’s skill, and make stories as I make biscuits or embroider underwear or wrap up packages.

Rose Wilder Lane (1886–1968) American journalist, travel writer, novelist, political theorist
Letter to Guy Moyston (25 Jun 1925)
(Source)

Quoted in William Holtz, The Ghost in the Little House: A Life of Rose Wilder Lane, ch. 9, sec. 5 (1995).