The United States is just now the oldest country in the world, there always is an oldest country and she is it, it is she who is the mother of the twentieth century civilization. She began to feel herself as it just after the Civil War. And so it is a country the right age to have been born in and the wrong age to live in.
Gertrude SteinI cannot write too much upon how necessary it is to be completely conservative that is particularly traditional in order to be free.
Gertrude SteinI know what Germans are. They are a funny people. They are always choosing someone to lead them in a direction which they do not want to go.
Gertrude SteinIt is very natural that every one who makes anything inside themselves that is makes it entirely out of what is in them does naturally have to have two civilizations. They have to have the civilization that makes them and the civilization that has nothing to do with them.
Gertrude SteinIt is extraordinary that when you are acquainted with a whole family you can forget about them.
Gertrude SteinIt is very difficult in quarreling to be certain in either one what the other one is remembering. It is very often astonishing to each one quarreling to find out what the other one was remembering for quarreling. Mostly in quarreling not any one is finding out what the other one is remembering for quarreling, what the other one is remembering from quarreling.
Gertrude Stein