Top 50 D.E. Stevenson Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “To have all my dear ones together under one roof – that is all I ask of life...”

— D.E. Stevenson

2. “Friends that you have known for a long time and love very dearly never seem to grow old.”

— D.E. Stevenson

3. “There is something very appealing about a room which one occupied as a child; it brings back one’s childhood more vividly than anything else I know.”

— D.E. Stevenson

4. “One need never be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings.”

— D.E. Stevenson

5. “It was just the old house creaking in the wind, and talking to itself about all it had seen, and the big cheerful families which it had sheltered and sent forth into the world.”

— D.E. Stevenson

6. “Some people travel all over the world and see nothing. They go about clad in a thick fog of their own making through which no impressions can penetrate.”

— D.E. Stevenson

7. “Prayer did not come easily to me for I always feel that prayer is a silent things, and opening of the heart. To ask for earthly benefits, to reel out a list of requirements and expect them to be supplied is not prayer. It is putting God in the same category as an intelligent grocer.”

— D.E. Stevenson

8. “Most people, looking back at their childhood, see it as a misty country half-forgotten or only to be remembered through an evocative sound or scent, but some episodes of those short years remain clear and brightly coloured like a landscape seen through the wrong end of a telescope.”

— D.E. Stevenson

9. “Dr. Forrester got lost in the snow and staggered into the hall and collapsed on the floor. If the door had been locked he would probably have died. So ever since then Uncle Jock and Aunt Mamie have never allowed the door to be locked.”

— D.E. Stevenson

10. “I like you to be happy and carefree, but... but nobody ought to live in a fool’s Paradise.”

— D.E. Stevenson

11. “They didn’t hate Germany or wish her ill. They were too busy and happy to bother.”

— D.E. Stevenson

12. “Don’t you worry. It doesn’t do no good worrying over things – just sail in.”

— D.E. Stevenson

13. “She had been born in the days when children were taught to venerate the aged, but she had lived long enough to learn that she could count upon no respect from the young.”

— D.E. Stevenson

14. “Death is not the saddest way to lose somebody you love.”

— D.E. Stevenson

15. “I can take a book in my hands and voyage across the world. China, Burma, Jamaica – the very sound of the words is an enchantment bringing me sights and sounds, and odors that my senses have never savored.”

— D.E. Stevenson

16. “The best way to plant happiness is to do at least one thing every day to make one person happier, and to do it for God. That shouldn’t be difficult. we can all do that.”

— D.E. Stevenson

17. “Few of us have the necessary unselfishness to hear with gladness the talents of others extolled or to listen with patience to the successes of those whom we despise – Vivian.”

— D.E. Stevenson

18. “There are adventures of the spirit and one can travel in books and interest oneself in people and affairs. One need never be dull as long as one has friends to help, gardens to enjoy and books in the long winter evenings.”

— D.E. Stevenson

19. “Poverty is easy to bear if it is only temporary, easier still if it is an entirely voluntary burden.”

— D.E. Stevenson

20. “Books are people,″ smiled Miss Marks. ″In every book worth reading, the author is there to meet you, to establish contact with you. He takes you into his confidence and reveals his thoughts to you.”

— D.E. Stevenson

21. “If we hate people it does not hurt them at all... it hurts ourselves.”

— D.E. Stevenson

22. “Bel let her talk – as a matter of fact it would have been difficult to stop her – and there was no harm in listening as long as she did not allow herself to believe a word Louise was saying. It’s a dream, thought Bel. It’s a fairy-tale. Fairy-tales don’t happen.”

— D.E. Stevenson

23. “The strangest thing in all man’s travelling is that he should carry about with him incongruous memories. There is no foreign land; it is the traveller only who is foreign, and now and then, by a flash of recollection, lights up the contrasts of the earth.”

— D.E. Stevenson

24. “In the course of my wanderings I have started life anew in many places, and in every place the same thing happens: at first there is little to do, one knows nobody and life passes by like a pageant, then gradually the world breaks in and one becomes a part of the pageant instead of a mere spectator.”

— D.E. Stevenson

25. “As she turned from him and looked at Trivona, she was assailed by a vague feeling of discomfort, for there was something very pathetic in the sleeping Trivvie. By day she was a rebel, full of the lust of life, battling for power, and yet more power, for freedom and yet more freedom; but, asleep, she was innocent, helpless, vulnerable. Barbara felt it was wrong to see Trivvie thus; it was like a treachery. Trivvie would hate to be seen without her armor on.”

— D.E. Stevenson

26. “Children are ruthless because they have not learned pity, they are inconsiderate because they have never experienced pain. When Philip had written the letter he had not seen his father receiving it, Philip had just sat down and written exactly what he was feeling with absolute honesty...”

— D.E. Stevenson

27. “Barbara returned the pressure. “It’s turned out all right after all,” she said contentedly. “Things usually do, somehow. You worry and fuss and try to make things go the way you think they should, and then you find that the other way was best. I’m going to try not to worry about things anymore.”

— D.E. Stevenson

28. “It is curious but true that those who make a habit of saying unkind things are often the most easily hurt and offended when their victims retaliate.”

— D.E. Stevenson

29. “The Johnstones’ farm was called Mureth and was about five miles from Drumburly.”

— D.E. Stevenson

30. “I’m glad you’re here, Monkey,” said Arthur Abbott at last. “I’m getting old, I suppose. Anyhow, I’ve come to the time of life when one old friend seems better than all the new friends in the world.”

— D.E. Stevenson

31. “The idea of writing down one’s difficulties and perplexities is not a new one. Great men have found it valuable in clearing their minds and helping them to wise and deliberate judgment – why shouldn’t I, in my smaller way, find a solution to my difficulties in the same manner?”

— D.E. Stevenson

32. “It was an eye-opener to Charlotte that she could love somebody in this mad way with a wild sweet tenerness that made everything he touched precious to her.”

— D.E. Stevenson

33. “I was not alone in my experience – not alone anymore. The mere fact that another had walked where I was walking made the path easier for my feet.”

— D.E. Stevenson

34. “It was curious that when we had been able to buy new clothes when we wanted we had never really appreciated them nor enjoyed them. You have to be in the position of needing things very badly indeed before you can appreciate possessing them.”

— D.E. Stevenson

35. “They left their comfortable homes... and fought... , and, because this was bread in their bone, they wanted no fuss.”

— D.E. Stevenson

36. “She saw, more or less, how the whole thing had happened, for she had the gift – which is often a doubtful blessing – of being able to see the other person’s point of view, of being able to put herself in the other person’s place.”

— D.E. Stevenson

37. “He put down the paper without regret, and looked at his wife, and, as he looked at her, he smiled because she was nice to look at, and because he loved her, and because she amused and interested him enormously. They had been married for nine months now, and sometimes he thought he knew her through and through, and sometimes he thought he didn’t know the first thing about her – theirs was a most satisfactory marriage.”

— D.E. Stevenson

38. “No one is forever occupied with sorrow, and there is a kind of gaiety that goes hand in hand with sorrow. Sorrow stands aside for a while to make room for mirth, and then steps forward to take her victim in a stronger grip. It was like that with me.”

— D.E. Stevenson

39. “Wherever Paula went she made friends and gathered information – she was interested in everything and everybody, and her interest drew people toward her and opened their hearts. Her manner was always natural and sincere, and it rarely failed to evoke a natural and sincere response – she was never patronizing, never gushing, never subservient, she was always herself.”

— D.E. Stevenson

40. “Someday, she was convinced, somebody would find out that she was an imposter in the adult world.”

— D.E. Stevenson

41. “If talent is a natural aptitude for creation with an outlook on life peculiar to oneself, then genius is to have an outlook on life, peculiar to oneself, which yet appeals to everybody. Talent is for oneself and a few others, but genius is universal.”

— D.E. Stevenson

42. “Knowledge is less hard to bear than ignorance if you possess an imagination.”

— D.E. Stevenson

43. “I never really thought or believed in my bones that the book would be published. I just finished it and sent it up – ” “And why to me?” inquired Mr. Abbott with much interest. “I mean why did you send the book to me? Perhaps you had heard from somebody that our firm – ” “Oh, no,” she exclaimed. “I knew nothing at all about publishers. You were the first on the list – alphabetically – that was all.” Mr. Abbott was somewhat taken aback – on such trifles hang the fates of bestsellers!”

— D.E. Stevenson

44. “It is a terrible thing to be angry with the dead.”

— D.E. Stevenson

45. “This was all the easier because Mr. Marvell was so matter of fact about the whole thing – the picture might have been a still life of a jar of roses, or of a cabbage, rather than the naked figure of his wife. After all, he’s her husband, thought Barbara vaguely, and that seemed to help.”

— D.E. Stevenson

46. “Malcolm opened the door of the little shed and busied himself lighting the stove. He used the stove to warm the shed so that he could bring the lambs in and warm them. Most hill lambs are hardy and need little care, but some of them, when they arrive in a cold wet world, decide it is not worth the struggle. It was Malcolm’s job to coax them to live and usually he succeeded.”

— D.E. Stevenson

47. “Jerry found Barbara very soothing and comforting during this difficult time. It was not necessary to confide in Barbara to gain her sympathy – you just talked to Barbara about odds and ends of things, and you came away feeling a different creature.”

— D.E. Stevenson

48. “Mr. Weir knew at once that I was really interested and came half-way to meet me. When people go half-way to meet each other something happens – something important.” “Yes – but what is it?” I ask with interest. “You give a bit of yourself and receive a bit of the other fellow, and you’re both richer.”

— D.E. Stevenson

49. “They had finished their meal. Anne rose to fetch the coffee and as she passed his chair she bent over and kissed him lightly on the forehead. It was a butterfly caress and exactly expressed the relationship between them, which was almost that of father and daughter, but not quite. Fathers and daughters have always known each other and take their affection for granted as a natural thing, but these two had found each other and were grateful.”

— D.E. Stevenson

50. “When you are young you are too busy with yourself – so Caroline thought – you haven’t time for ordinary little things.”

— D.E. Stevenson