Ruth Pitter Quotes

I like being outside and working with the elements. The elemental aspects of it. The physicality of it.

Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.

What a man needs in gardening is a cast-iron back, with a hinge in it.

I need a long, cold winter.

I'm a farm guy, so I like to work outside, dealing with the trees and that kind of stuff.

Work my hands in the soil, what's the pay for all the toil? Dust for blood, dust for blood, dust for blood.

Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.

Do you remember stormy winter?Well button up your coat, one's comin' soon

Working all winter shining all summer

I would rather do a good hours work weeding than write two pages of my best; nothing is so interesting as weeding. I went crazy over the outdoor work, and at last had to confine myself to the house, or literature must have gone by the board.

Boston has two seasons: August and winter.

There is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp.

I was a maid, so cleaning toilets wasn't my favorite thing, but honestly, standing outside all day in the cold was worse.

I'm a winter girl. I like coming out when things are desolate and everybody's ready to slit their wrists.

Come, ye cold winds, at January's call, On whistling wings, and with white flakes bestrew The earth.

He'd be better off shoveling snow.

Honest winter, snow clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping loom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May - how often has it robbed me of heart and hope.

The wino and I know the pain of back bustin'.

Every mile is two in winter

Toward seven o'clock every morning, I leave my study and step Out on the bright terrace; the sun already burns resplendent Between the shadows of the fig tree, makes the low wall of coarse Granite warm to the touch. Here my tools lie ready and waiting, Each one an intimate, an ally: the round basket for weeds: The zappetta, the small hoe with a short haft . . . There's a rake here as well, at at times a mattock and spade, Or two watering cans filled with water warmed by the sun. With my basket and small hoe in hand, facing the sun, I Go out for my morning walk.

Lastly came Winter cloathed all in frize, Chattering his teeth for cold that did him chill; Whilst on his hoary beard his breath did freese, And the dull drops, that from his purpled bill As from a limebeck did adown distill: In his right hand a tipped staffe he held, With which his feeble steps he stayed still; For he was faint with cold, and weak with eld; That scarce his loosed limbes he hable was to weld.

Winter, a bad guest, sitteth with me at home; blue are my hands with his friendly handshaking