Home

The Evolution Of Calpurnia Tate Quotes

The Evolution Of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly

"It’s amazing what you can see when you just sit quietly and look."
"The powder smoke filled the air until the sun was blotted out. You couldn’t see more than five yards to either hand."
"Despite my fear, I took a good look around the room, since I knew I’d never have the chance again."
"Every morning, the possum returned at five o’clock sharp."
"How could anybody shoot such a beauty? And then the fawn did this miraculous thing: It folded up its front legs, then its hind legs, and sank to the ground where it . . . disappeared."
"The class Insecta comprises the largest number of living organisms known to man."
"You wouldn’t believe the amount of chaos and commotion six brothers could create."
"I looked at the angle of the sun through the trees and thought about how far we had walked."
"The cooling water gradually soothed me. After all, what was one book to me? Really, it didn’t matter. One day I would have all the books in the world, shelves and shelves of them. I would live my life in a tower of books. I would read all day long and eat peaches."
"I knew that I might be in desperate need of my tent."
"He looked right at me and smiled and said, ‘Don’t mind about me, Cap. I’m all right.’"
"It is the flag that signifies yellow fever—a sign to stay away."
"I was overcome with sadness as I bid good-bye to my bat."
"One thing I had learned for sure: You could not win when it came to class Insecta, order Lepidoptera."
"I suppose you haven’t learned to hold your liquor yet."
"It’s easier if you hold your nose and down it in one go."
"You look like you’ve been grubbing in the garden."
"How do you do, Miss Goodacre? I am pleased to make your acquaintance."
"Oh, I am sure we shall be more than acquaintances; I’m sure we will become fast friends."
"Taste was exceedingly important, n’est-ce pas?"
"Drink to me only with thine eyes, And I will pledge, with mine; Or leave a kiss within the cup, And I’ll not ask for wine."
"I don’t have that many days left. Why would I want to spend them on matters of drainage and overdue accounts? I must husband my hours and spend every one of them wisely."
"Plato said all science begins with astonishment."
"I find that actually reading the book is a much more effective way of absorbing it."
"You will see more interesting things the closer your sample is to the green river plants growing here."
"To do so indicates a lack of purpose and a shallowness of scholarship."
"I would never 'kid.' And, for once, your mother and I are in agreement on this important point: The use of slang is an indicator of a weak intellect and an impoverished vocabulary."
"It’s the same as learning a piano piece, Callie," she would say, "and you can do that fine. All you have to do is practice it over and over until you get it right."
"Playing the piano, the notes vanished a second later in the air and you were left with nothing. Still, the music brought joy even as the notes evaporated."
"I didn’t think too much about the conversation until a few days later."
"It’s Christian that we invite her, don’t you think?"
"The boys, I can understand at times. But you. Your behavior is a blot on the family name."
"Natural selection will modify the structure of the young in relation to the parent, and of the parent in relation to the young."
"What’s Jim Bowie going to do with only one sock?"
"That’s not unusual, considering we ripped it out of the ground not so long ago."
"Your life could be much harder. Viola is ‘house’ instead of ‘field.’"
"We had to be self-sufficient in the field. If you needed a new sock, you made it yourself."
"Be calm," he said, "and tell me what’s wrong."
"It’s the vetch," I cried. "I didn’t write it down. It’s not there."
"It’s such a lovely evening. Won’t you join me?"
"Cotton futures are up, I believe," said Granddaddy, "and Calpurnia and I had our photograph made."
"It may possibly be a new species of vetch," said Granddaddy.
"Let us cast some light in the shadowy corners of Terra Incognita. Let us hold high the lamp of knowledge and expunge another dragon from the map."
"Faithfully yours, Walter Tate and Calpurnia Virginia Tate."
"I thought the day would never come, my girl. I thought I might die before it happened."
"Nature cares nothing for appearances, except in so far as they may be useful to any being."
"As more individuals are produced than can possibly survive, there must in every case be a struggle for existence, either one individual with another of the same species, or with the individuals of distinct species, or with the physical conditions of life."
"Battle within battle must ever be recurring with varying success."
"It was a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it was a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known."
"It hadn’t killed her yet, so I guessed it was safe."
"The uncooperative dough flopped in all directions."
"You got to crimp the edges with your thumb, like this. That makes ’em look nice."
"You got to put the letter C, for Callie, on top."
"It is better to travel with hope in one’s heart than to arrive in safety."
"I have managed to take perfectly good pecans and ferment them into something approximating cat piss."
"We should celebrate today’s failure because it is a clear sign that our voyage of discovery is not yet over."
"I think maybe I want to go to the university."
"All kinds of things," I said, a trifle pompously.
"You don’t have to drink it. Just tell me if you like the way it smells."
"The lesson for today is this: It is better to travel with hope in one’s heart than to arrive in safety."
"Why do you have to get married? Why do I have to get married? Why can’t we all stay here in our house?"
"People are always saying ‘one day’ to me, and I’m sick of it."
"A scientist? That's kind of far-fetched, don’t you think?"
"I don’t know of any lady scientists, do you?"
"Our whole existence on this earth is a cycle of life and death. That is a fact."
"I wish I had a donkey. Just a little one. And maybe a little cart for him to pull. I would name him Dinkey the Donkey. That’s what I would call him."
"How fleeting are the wishes and efforts of man! how short his time! and consequently how poor will his products be, compared with those accumulated by nature."
"Feeble man can do much by his powers of artificial selection."
"I would almost as soon believe with the old and ignorant cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as to mock the shells now living on the sea-shore."
"Although the beaks and feet of birds are generally quite clean, I can show that earth sometimes adheres to them: in one instance I removed twenty-two grains of dry argillaceous earth from one foot of a partridge, and in this earth there was a pebble quite as large as the seed of a vetch."
"The only question, really, is how are we to spend the brief time that is allotted us?"
"There are so many things to learn, you see, and so little time is given us."
"I wish to go driving in an auto-mobile. I hear they have one in Austin."
"It would be a sad commentary on my life if I were to have any resolutions left at my age."
"How could any species survive the snow if the word for it died out?"