Jessamyn West – 9 Quotes

9 Quotes by Jessamyn West

Writing is a solitary occupation. Family, friends, and society are the natural enemies of the writer. He must be alone, uninterrupted, and slightly savage if he is to sustain and complete an undertaking.

– Jessamyn West

There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that they themselves are no longer young. The second is youthful ignorance of the fact that the middle aged are still alive.

– Jessamyn West

Faithfulness to the past can be a kind of death above ground. Writing of the past is a resurrection the past then lives in your words and you are free.

– Jessamyn West

It is very east to forgive others their mistakes it takes more grit and gumption to forgive them for having witnessed your own.

– Jessamyn West

The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

– Jessamyn West

A taste for irony has kept more hearts from breaking than a sense of humor, for it takes irony to appreciate the joke which is on oneself.

– Jessamyn West

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

– Jessamyn West

Teaching is the royal road to learning.

– Jessamyn West

In my time and neighborhood (and in my soul) there was only one standard by which a woman measured success: did some man want her?

– Jessamyn West