The past is really almost as much a work of the imagination as the future.

- Jessamyn West

A broken bone can heal, but the wound a word opens can fester forever.

- Jessamyn West

Each death and departure comes to us as a surprise, a sorrow never anticipated. Life is a long series of farewells; only the circumstances should sur…

- Jessamyn West

Memory is a magnet. It will pull to it and hold only material nature has designed it to attract.

- Jessamyn West

Fiction reveals truths that reality obscures.

- Jessamyn West

One can write out of love or hate. Hate tells one a great deal about a person. Love makes one become the person. Love, contrary to legend, is not hal…

- Jessamyn West

There are two barriers that often prevent communication between the young and their elders. The first is middle-aged forgetfulness of the fact that t…

- Jessamyn West

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

- Jessamyn West

Somehow I have the feeling that in some book is the great treasure I've been looking for all my life.

- Jessamyn West