“ When you want to be seeing how the way a woman is really made of, Jeff, you shouldn't never be so cruel, never to be thinking how much she can stand, the strong way you always do it, Jeff." "Why, Melanctha," cried Jeff Campbell, in his horror, and then he was very tender to her, and like a good, strong, gentle brother in his soothing of her, "Why Melanctha dear, I certainly don't now see what it is you mean by what you was just saying to me. Why Melanctha, you poor little girl, you certainly never did believe I ever knew I was giving you real suffering. ”
Gertrude Stein
Biographical details
Gertrude Stein (1874–1946), an American modernist writer and art collector, became a key figure in 20th-century literature and avant-garde art through her Parisian salon, which brought together luminaries such as Picasso and Hemingway. Her works, including Three Lives and Tender Buttons, explored language and identity, challenging traditional narrative structures.
Known for pithy statements like “Rose is a rose is a rose” and “there is no there there,” Stein’s body of work reflects her fascination with perception, modernity, and the relationship between art and life. Her influence continues as a link between literary experimentation and the visual boldness of her time.
Quotes by Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein,
Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein
“ A beggar who begs and a print which prints, a surface which heats and a smoke which smokes, all this makes silver and gold is not cheaper not so much cheaper that there is no clatter. All the conscience which tells that little tongue to tickle is the one that does not refer to teeth. To remember, to forget, to silence all the mistakes, to cause perfection and indignation and to be sweet smelling, to fasten a splendid ulster and to reduce expenses, all this makes no charge, it does not even make wine, it makes the whole thing incontestable. ”
Gertrude Stein,
Geography and Plays
“ All of it is planted. The blossom is pealing, the tender dew is green, the presence is in the time in between, the sacrifice is that that the bell which rings has a clapper. The pleasure in the use is not so dreary but that there is an exchange.One sees a custom, one sees a date, one sees a potatoe, one sees a caterpillar, one sees more particulars than kissing, one sees the blame distributed, one sees more than any one.Powder and food, union and despatch, so that there is no pale color, so that there is black, so that there is much preperation of a return to the same. ”
