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I consider a story merely as a frame on which to stretch my materials.

Washington Irving

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Washington Irving
Age: 76 †
Born: 1783
Born: April 3
Died: 1859
Died: November 28
Author
Biographer
Diplomat
Essayist
Historian
Journalist
Lawyer
Novelist
Playwright
Politician
Writer
New York City
New York
Diedrich Knickerbocker
Geoffrey Crayon
Lauuncelot Langstaff
Consider
Merely
Materials
Story
Stories
Writing
Stretch
Frame

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Young lawyers attend the courts, not because they have business there, but because they have no business.
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Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.
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My father died and left me his blessing and his business. His blessing brought no money into my pocket, and as to his business, it soon deserted me, for I was busy writing poetry, and could not attend to law, and my clients, though they had great respect for my talents, had no faith in a poetical attorney.
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There are certain half-dreaming moods of mind in which we naturally steal away from noise and glare, and seek some quiet haunt where we may indulge our reveries and build our air castles undisturbed.
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The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
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There is certainly something in angling that tends to produce a serenity of the mind.
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Jealous people poison their own banquet and then eat it
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Nature seems to delight in disappointing the assiduities of art, with which it would rear legitimate dulness to maturity and to glory in the vigour and luxuriance of her chance productions.
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A barking dog is often more useful than a sleeping lion.
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Angling is an amusement peculiarly adapted to the mild and cultivated scenery of England
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How convenient it would be to many of our great men and great families of doubtful origin, could they have the privilege of the heroes of yore, who, whenever their origin was involved in obscurity, modestly announced themselves descended from a god.
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Washington, in fact, had very little private life, but was eminently a public character.
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No man is so methodical as a complete idler, and none so scrupulous in measuring out his time as he whose time is worth nothing.
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There is certain relief in change, even though it be from bad to worse! As I have often found in traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one's position, and be bruised in a new place.
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The land of literature is a fairy land to those who view it at a distance, but, like all other landscapes, the charm fades on a nearer approach, and the thorns and briars become visible.
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One point is certain, that truth is one and immutable until the jurors all agree, they cannot all be right.
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The love of a mother is never exhausted. It never changes - it never tires - it endures through all in good repute, in bad repute. In the face of the world's condemnation, a mother's love still lives on.
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What earnest worker, with hand and brain for the benefit of his fellowmen, could desire a more pleasing recognition of his usefulness than the monument of a tree, ever growing, ever blooming, and ever bearing wholesome fruit?
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One of the greatest and simplest tools for learning more and growing is doing more.
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Small minds are subdued by misfortunes, greater minds overcome them.
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