I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.

- Agnes Smedley

To die would have been beautiful. But I belong to those who do not die for the sake of beauty.

- Agnes Smedley

There's something dreadfully decisive about a beheading.

- Agnes Smedley

But there were years when, in search of what I thought was better, nobler things I denied these, my people, and my family. I forgot the songs they su…

- Agnes Smedley

New York was a new and strange world. Vast, impersonal, merciless.... Always before I had felt like a person, an individual, hopeful that I could mol…

- Agnes Smedley

I have always detested the belief that sex is the chief bond between man and woman. Friendship is far more human.

- Agnes Smedley

But settled things were enemies to me and soon lost their newness and color. The unknown called.

- Agnes Smedley

I have loved and bitterness left me for that hour. But there are times when love itself is bitter.

- Agnes Smedley

Yet it is awful to love a person who is a torture to you. And a fascinating person who loves you and won't hear of anything but your loving him and l…

- Agnes Smedley