The central paradox and challenge of marriage is that we have to make family out of someone we're not related to.

- Ruth Stout

When we contemplate buying something, we usually ask the price of it, then decide whether or not it is worth that much to us. But when we expend time…

- Ruth Stout

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in …

- Ruth Stout

the bliss that comes from ignorance should seldom be encouraged for it is likely to do one out of a more satisfying bliss.

- Ruth Stout

If 'heartache' sounds exaggerated then surely you have never gone to your garden one rare morning in June to find that the frost, without any percept…

- Ruth Stout

It’s a fair-sized job to write a book that people can be bothered just to read; when they begin to steal copies, you are really getting some place.

- Ruth Stout

Only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.

- Ruth Stout

The unmulched garden looks to me like some naked thing which for one reason or another would be better off with a few clothes on.

- Ruth Stout

Working in the garden gives me something beyond the enjoyment of the senses. It gives me a profound feeling of inner peace.

- Ruth Stout