The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism, but February.

–Joseph Wood Krutch, The Twelve Seasons, 1949.

Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. The fearful are caught as often as the bold.

 –Helen Keller Let Us Have Faith, 1940

We simply need that wild country available to us, even if we never do more than drive to its edge and look in. For it can be a means of reassuring ourselves of our sanity as creatures, a part of the geography of hope.

–Wallace Stegner, “The Wilderness Idea,” 1960.

No matter how much cats fight, there always seem to be plenty of kittens.

 –Abraham Lincoln

The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who can’t read them.

 –Mark Twain

Science is the art of creating suitable illusions which the fool believes or argues against, but the wise man enjoys for their beauty or their ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the unknowable.

–Carl Jung

The expression “Have you come for fire?” is still used occasionally, but in these days when friction matches are in every home and in some pocket of almost every man, it is likely that many have no idea of the origin of the question. Every woman expected to keep coals enough buried in some fireplace to start fire when needed. It was a sorry time when they and the tinder box failed. My grandmother once went nearly a half mile for coals, when she lost fire.

–Mrs E.L. Johnson of Newtown, comments made at a Grange meeting, 1897

What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and gets to bed at night and in between he does what he wants to.

–Bob Dylan

The oboe sounds like a clarinet with a cold, but it is the instrument the whole orchestra tunes up to.

—Victor Borge

Time’s fun when you’re having flies.

–Kermit the Frog

Make sure to send a lazy man for the Angel of Death.

 –Yiddish Proverb

(Each week this column will feature quotations gleaned from the readings and experiences of our editors, reporters, readers, and friends. All are invited to submit quotations for inclusion in this column. They may be sent to Gleanings c/o The Newtown Bee, 5 Church Hill Road, Newtown, CT 06470, or emailed to editor@thebee.com.)