Remarks by Edgar A. Guest | V2Melody Quotations

“In time of great peril they dared to die, together, their arms about each other's shoulders, the four speaking the common prayer that unites us all.”

Honouring courage and fellowship that transcend religious divisions in a moment of mortal danger · Prose, Living the Years, 1949

“The home is not yet completed. We still cherish our dreams of what it is to be.”

Treating home and family life as continuing works shaped by hope and change · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“We were not to be one hundred per cent happy. No one ever is.”

Acknowledging that sorrow remains an unavoidable part of even a fortunate life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“There is no pleasanter sight within the front door of any man's castle than the strewn and disordered evidences that children there abide.”

Finding warmth and meaning in the ordinary disorder created by family life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“The garden has become a part of the home.”

Expressing the intimate connection he felt between cultivated nature and domestic belonging · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“It sounds preachy, I know, to say that all buildings depend for their real beauty upon the spirit of the people who inhabit them. But it is true.”

Locating the beauty of a home in its inhabitants rather than its architecture or possessions · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“You can at least be happy in the thought that you have tried to do something for another.”

Valuing compassionate action even when its eventual outcome cannot be guaranteed · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“I learned how much braver the woman has to be than the man.”

Reflecting on the different burdens of grief he observed within domestic life · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“We have been building a home for the last fifteen years, but it begins to look now as though it will not be finished for many years to come.”

Presenting home as something created gradually through shared life rather than construction alone · Prose memoir, Making the House a Home, 1922

“And, Mr. Sneering Critic, you certainly cannot disturb my peace of mind with your gibes and taunts unless you have my co-operation.”

Arguing that criticism gains power only when one allows it to do so · Prose writing quoted in Outlook and Independent, 1930

“If anybody'd give me a new idea, I'd kiss 'em.”

A humorous admission of the strain of producing verse at an extraordinary rate · Interview quoted in Time, 1951

“if something happens to me, it must happen to other people”

Expressing his belief that ordinary personal experience can speak to a wide audience · Interview quoted in Time, 1951

“everything I've ever wanted has been given me—so naturally I'm optimistic.”

Explaining the personal experience behind his famously hopeful outlook · Interview quoted in Time, 1951

“I do the same kind of jingles that James Whitcomb Riley used to write. All he tried to be was sincere.”

Linking his popular verse to simplicity and sincerity rather than literary prestige · Statement quoted in Time, 1959

“I am a newspaperman who writes verse.”

A modest description of his vocation that deliberately resists the grander title of poet · Statement quoted in Time, 1959

“But I have come to see that toys in a house are its real adornments.”

Finding domestic beauty in the visible presence of childhood · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“He who spends money on a little child is investing it to real purpose; and the dividends it pays in pride and happiness and contentment are beyond computation.”

Valuing care for children above any measurable financial return · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“I have heard many arguments against adopting children, but I have never heard a good one.”

A concise and emphatic defence of adoption · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“To be partners in a sacred memory is a divine bond.”

Describing how remembrance of loss can unite people permanently · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“But a home cannot be builded always on happiness.”

Acknowledging that shared sorrow also deepens belonging · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“There is always a way out of the difficulties. Even though we cannot see or guess what that way is to be, it will be provided.”

Expressing trust that unseen possibilities remain during hardship · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

Faith
Hope

“Dreams are free, and in their flights of fancy young folks may be as extravagant as they wish.”

Celebrating the unrestricted imaginative hopes of youth · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“Fortunately for all of us, life does not break its sad news in advance.”

Observing that ignorance of future sorrow allows present happiness to survive · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

“Rather it is because it takes years to build a home, whereas a house can be builded in a few months.”

Distinguishing a physical dwelling from the shared life gradually created within it · Autobiographical essay, Making the House a Home, 1922

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