Here and there on the branch of an oak a congress of leaves still clung, rigid as flakes of bronze.

- Martha Ostenso

A false vision was better than none.

- Martha Ostenso

Ah, life, life, how madly, how cruelly it raced along your pulses!

- Martha Ostenso

once a man had thrust his hands into the soil and knew the grit of it between his teeth, he felt something rise within him that was not of his day or…

- Martha Ostenso

I don't see as it matters much how well you mean if it's harm you're doin'.

- Martha Ostenso

Time, designing slowly, swiftly; Time, destroying slowly, swiftly; Time holding, possessing the earth in its tender indifference.

- Martha Ostenso

You have stirred the soil with your plow, my friend. It will never be the same again.

- Martha Ostenso

Growing old was simply a process of drawing closer to that ultimate independence called death.

- Martha Ostenso

The past ... is a dim avenue down which we may walk and find the diverging paths of terror and beauty and passion.

- Martha Ostenso