During much of my life, I was anxious to be what someone else wanted me to be. Now I have given up that struggle. I am what I am.
Elizabeth Jane CoatsworthOutwardly I am 83, but inwardly I am every age, with the emotions and experience of each period.
Elizabeth Jane Coatsworththere is something dangerous about mirrors. ... What dynamite we handle when we lift a mirror or bend towards one! I seldom do.
Elizabeth Jane CoatsworthNo wonder the tulip is the patron flower of Holland. Looking at it one almost smells fresh paint laid on in generous brilliance: doors, blinds, whole houses, canal boats, pails, farm wagons - all painted in greens, blues, reds, pinks, yellows.
Elizabeth Jane CoatsworthI say that almost everywhere there is beauty enough to fill a person's life if one would only be sensitive to it. but Henry says No: that broken beauty is only a torment, that one must have a whole beauty with man living in relation to it to have a rich civilization and art. . . . Is it because I am a woman that I accept what crumbs I may have, accept the hot-dog stands and amusement parks if I must, if the blue is bright beyond them and the sunset flushes the breasts of sea birds?
Elizabeth Jane Coatsworth