Literary Birthday – 17 February – Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Dorothy Canfield Fisher was born 17 February 1879 and died 9 November 1958.

Quotes

1. Libraries are the vessels in which the seed corn for the future is stored.
2. The richness and endless variety of human relationships … that’s what authors, even the finest and greatest, only succeed in hinting at. It’s a hopeless business, like trying to dip up the ocean with a tea-spoon.
3. A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.
4. It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognise the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.
5. If we would only give, just once, the same amount of reflection to what we want to get out of life that we give to the question of what to do with a two weeks’ vacation, we would be startled at our false standards and the aimless procession of our busy days.

Dorothy Canfield Fisher was an American author of novels, short stories (including Home Fires in France), children’s books (including Paul Revere and the Minute Men and Understood Betsy), educational works, and memoirs. She received a Ph.D. in Romance languages from Columbia University in 1904. She shaped literary tastes by serving as a member of the Book of the Month Club selection committee from 1925 to 1951.

Source for quotes

by Amanda Patterson

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