Top 90 Stephen Crane Quotes (2025 Update)
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51. “He occasionally tried to fathom a comrade with seductive sentences. He looked about to find men in the proper mood. All attempts failed to bring forth any statement which looked in any way like a confession to those doubts which he privately acknowledged in himself. He was afraid to make an open declaration of his concern, because he dreaded to place some unscrupulous confidant upon the high plane of the unconfessed from which elevation he could be derided.”

— Stephen Crane

52. “Formidable women, with uncombed hair and disordered dress, gossiped while leaning on railings, or screamed in frantic quarrels.”

— Stephen Crane

53. “Alone in the kitchen, Horace stared with sombre eyes at the plate of food. For a long time he betrayed no sign of yielding. His mood was adamantine. He was resolved not to sell his vengeance for bread, cold ham, and a pickle, and yet it must be known that the sight of them affected him powerfully. The pickle in particular was notable for its seductive charm. He surveyed it darkly. Horace.”

— Stephen Crane

54. “He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man.”

— Stephen Crane

55. “The conceit of man was explained by this storm to be the very engine of life. One.”

— Stephen Crane

56. “And there were iron laws of tradition and law on four sides. He was in a moving box. As he perceived this fact it occurred to him that he had never wished to come to the war. He had not enlisted of his free will. He had been dragged by the merciless government. And now they were taking him out to be slaughtered.”

— Stephen Crane

57. “But these matters did not annoy him. It is almost certain that if the boat capsized he would have tumbled comfortably out upon the ocean as if he felt sure that it was a great soft mattress.”

— Stephen Crane

58. “He had been a mere man railing at a condition, but now he was out of it and could see that it had been very proper and just. It had been necessary for him to swallow swords that he might have a better throat for grapes.”

— Stephen Crane

59. “Everything is bicycle.”

— Stephen Crane

60. “He thought: “I am going to drown? Can it be possible? Can it be possible? Can it be possible?”

— Stephen Crane

61. “Ma, I’m going to enlist.”

— Stephen Crane

62. “Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. The debates drained him of his fire.”

— Stephen Crane

63. “He saw that it was an ironical thing for him to be running thus toward that which he had been at such pains to avoid.”

— Stephen Crane

64. “He was submitting, submitting because of his fathers, bending his mind in a most perfect slavery to this conflagration.”

— Stephen Crane

65. “Whatever he had learned of himself was of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.”

— Stephen Crane

66. “Such an assemblage of the spraddle-legged men of the middle class, whose hands were bent and shoulders stooped from delving and constructing, had never appeared to an Asbury Park summer crowd, and the latter was vaguely amused.”

— Stephen Crane

67. “Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air: “Why – why – what – what ’s th’ matter?”

— Stephen Crane

68. “You get so frightfully hungry as soon as you learn that there are no more meals coming.”

— Stephen Crane

69. “The open mouth of a saloon called seductively to passengers to enter and annihilate sorrow or create rage.”

— Stephen Crane

70. “A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree.”

— Stephen Crane

71. “They would jeer him, and, if practicable, pelt him with missiles.”

— Stephen Crane

72. “She performed nearly all the house-work in exchange for the privilege of existence. Every.”

— Stephen Crane

73. “The youth perceived that the time had come. He was about to be measured. For a moment he felt in the face of his great trial like a babe, and the flesh over his heart seemed very thin.”

— Stephen Crane

74. “He felt the subtle battle brotherhood more potent even than the cause for which they were fighting. It was a mysterious fraternity borne of the smoke and danger of death.”

— Stephen Crane

75. “Nature did not seem cruel to him then, nor kind, nor dangerous, nor wise. But she was not interested, completely not interested.”

— Stephen Crane

76. “I like the people. But, considered generally, they are a collection of ingenious blockheads.”

— Stephen Crane

77. “He reflected that when one gets properly wearied, drowning must really be a comfortable arrangement, a cessation of hostilities accompanied by a large degree of relief, and he was glad of it, for the main thing in his mind for some months had been horror of the temporary agony. He did not wish to be hurt.”

— Stephen Crane

78. “LCVI If I should cast off this tattered coat, And go free into the mighty sky; If I should find nothing there But a bast blue, Echoless, ignorant,- What then?”

— Stephen Crane

79. “With the conviction came a store of assurance. He felt a quiet manhood, non-assertive but of sturdy and strong blood. He knew that he would no more quail before his guides wherever they should point. He had been to touch the great death, and found that, after all, it was but the great death. He was a man.”

— Stephen Crane

80. “Many workmen Built a huge ball of masonry Upon a mountain-top. Then they went to the valley below, And turned to behold their work. “It is grand,” they said; They loved the thing. Of a sudden, it moved: It came upon them swiftly; It crushed them all to blood. But some had opportunity to squeal.”

— Stephen Crane

81. “These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.”

— Stephen Crane

82. “When the roof fell in, a great funnel of smoke swarmed toward the sky, as if the old man’s mighty spirit, released from its body – a little bottle – had swelled like the genie of fable. The smoke was tinted rose-hue from the flames, and perhaps the unutterable midnights of the universe will have no power to daunt the colour of this soul.”

— Stephen Crane

83. “All men are. I declare, I think you to be the most incomprehensible creatures.”

— Stephen Crane

84. “A single rifle flashed in a thicket before the regiment.”

— Stephen Crane

85. “A dog, a woman, an’ a walnut tree, Th’ more yeh beat ’em, th’ better they be! That’s like us.”

— Stephen Crane

86. “What a woman says doesn’t amount to shucks. It’s the way she says it – that’s what counts.”

— Stephen Crane

87. “It is useless to expect appreciation of his profound and fine senses from such men as the lieutenant.”

— Stephen Crane

88. “If You Ain’t Afraid, Go Do It Then.”

— Stephen Crane

89. “The doctor was shaving this lawn as if it were a priest’s chin. All.”

— Stephen Crane

90. “The lieutenant of the youth’s company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer’s profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack hammer at home.”

— Stephen Crane

91. “In the darkness he saw visions of a thousand-tongued fear that would babble at his back and cause him to flee, while others were going coolly about their country’s business. He admitted that he would not be able to cope with this monster. He felt that every nerve in his body would be an ear to hear the voices, while other men would remain stolid and deaf.”

— Stephen Crane

92. “A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot. In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battleground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.”

— Stephen Crane

93. “It was difficult to think of reputation when others were thinking of skins.”

— Stephen Crane

94. “The fire cackled musically. From it swelled light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces turned toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off to the right, through a window in the forest could be seen a handful of stars lying, like glittering pebbles, on the black level of the night.”

— Stephen Crane

95. “The shadows of his face were deepening and his tight lips seemed holding in check the moan of great despair. There could be seen a certain stiffness in the movements of his body, as if he were taking infinite care not to arouse the passion of his wounds. As he went on, he seemed always looking for a place, like one who goes to choose a grave.”

— Stephen Crane

96. “The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.”

— Stephen Crane