My Antonia Quotes

Quote 1: When talking about their childhood, the two men frequently mention their old friend, Antonia Shimerda, "who seemed to mean to us the country, the conditions, the whole adventure of our childhood". Introduction, pg. 2

Quote 2: The well-preserved garden, full of flowers and vegetables, assures him that humans, when they die, "become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge". Book 1, Chapter 2, pg. 14

Quote 3: Antonia, the eldest daughter, is a striking-looking girl, with eyes that were "big and warm and full of light, like the sun shining on brown pools in the wood". Book 1, Chapter 3, pg. 17

Quote 4: Jim finds that Mr. Shimerda is "calm" and "skilled", but also he realizes with a sinking heart, that Mr. Shimerda "looked like ashes", as if "something from which all the warmth and light had died out". Book 1, Chapter 3, pg. 18

Quote 5: The country that Jim first found anxious now "seemed to [him] the roads to freedom". Book 1, Chapter 4, pg. 21

Quote 6: Jim realizes that Antonia is "most comfortable only when we were tucked down on the baked earth, in the full blaze of the sun". Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 27

Quote 7: He and Antonia believe that the "miles of copper-red grass were drenched in sunlight that was stronger and fiercer than at any other time of day", for "that hour always had the exultation of victory, of triumphant ending, like a hero's death". Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 28

Quote 8: The "old man's smile...was so full of sadness, of pity for things, that [Jim] never afterward forgot it". Book 1, Chapter 6, pg. 29

Quote 9: Jim remarks proudly that afterwards Antonia "began to treat [him] more like an equal and to defer to [him] in other things than reading lessons". Book 1, Chapter 7, pg. 30

Quote 10: Antonia says to Jim, "I never know you was so brave...You is just like big mans; you wait for him lift his head and then you go for him. Ain't you feel scared a bit? Now we take that snake home and show everybody. Nobody ain't seen in this kawn-tree so big snake like you kill". Book 1, Chapter 7, pg. 32.

Quote 11: Jim remarks that his life now "centred around warmth and food", and that "next to getting warm and keeping warm, dinner and supper were the most interesting things". Book 1, Chapter 9, pg. 44

Quote 12: It would be years before Jim learns that the little brown shavings the Shimerdas "had brought so far and treasured so jealously" are dried mushrooms. Book 1, Chapter 10, pg. 52

Quote 13: Jim realizes with sadness that the hard life on the farm and the "crowded clutter of their cave" have obliterated all the "peace and order...from the earth" and "in the old world he had left so far behind". Book 1, Chapter 12, pg. 57

Quote 14: Antonia speaks feelingly about her father and how sad she knows he is: "My papa sad for the old country. He not look good. He never make music any more. At home he play violin all the time; for weddings and for dance. Here never. When I beg him for play, he shake his head no. Some days he take his violin out of his box and make with his fingers on the strings, like this, but never he make the music". Book 1, Chapter 13, pg. 59

Quote 15: "[My papa] not want to come, nev-er!...But my mama, she want Ambrosch for to be rich, with many cattle". Book 1, Chapter 13, pg. 59

Quote 16: Mrs. Burden decides to go see the Shimerdas anyway, to make sure the children are all right, especially Antonia: "The oldest one was his darling, and was like a right hand to him. He might have thought of her. He's left her alone in a hard world". Book 1, Chapter 14, pg. 64

Quote 17: Jim realizes that "if Mr. Shimerda's soul were lingering about in this world at all, it would be here, in our house, which had been more to his liking than any other in the neighborhood". Book 1, Chapter 14, pg. 66

Quote 18: "His exhausted spirit, so tired of cold and crowding and the struggle with the ever-falling snow" must be in the Burdens' home. Book 1, Chapter 14, pg. 66

Quote 19: Jim "never came upon the place without emotion", and he is sure that "never a tired driver passed the wooden cross...without wishing well to the sleeper". Book 1, Chapter 16, pg. 77

Quote 20: Jim laments how "she had come to [them] as a child, and now she was a tall, strong young girl". Book 1, Chapter 17, pg. 79

Quote 21: Antonia boasts, "I can work like mans now...I can work as much as [Ambrosch]. School is all right for little boys. I can help make this land one good farm". Book 1, Chapter 17, pg. 80

Quote 22: As he says with uneasiness, Antonia is "too proud of her own strength". Book 1, Chapter 17, pg. 81

Quote 23: Antonia replies practically, "Things will be easy for you. But they will be hard for us". Book 1, Chapter 19, pg. 90

Quote 24: Lena has changed her appearance, for she looks "demure and pretty", and Jim is surprised to see her "brushed and smoothed and dressed like a town girl, smiling at us with perfect composure". Book 2, Chapter 4, pg. 103

Quote 25: "I'm done with the farm", Lena tells them. Book 2, Chapter 4, pg.

Quote 26: "I get awful homesick for them, all the same", Lena says. Book 2, Chapter 5, pg. 111

Quote 27: To Jim, Antonia and Mrs. Harling have a "hearty joviality, a relish of life, not overdelicate, but very invigorating". Book 2, Chapter 6, pg. 116

Quote 28: The country girls are considered a "menace to the social order" in Black Hawk. Book 2, Chapter 9, pg. 129

Quote 29: "Now, don't you go and be a fool like some of these town boys. You're not going to sit around here and whittle store-boxes and tell stories all your life. You are going away to school and make something of yourself. I'm just awful proud of you". Book 2, Chapter 12, pg. 143

Quote 30: Lena running to sit by him, saying, "Now they are all gone, and I can kiss you as much as I like". Book 2, Chapter 12, pg. 144

Quote 31: Antonia says, "I ain't never forgot my own country". Book 2, Chapter 14, pg. 151

Quote 32: Jim "could never lose [himself] for so long among impersonal things". Book 3, Chapter 1, pg. 168

Quote 33: Lena has been "so quietly conventionalized by city clothes". Book 3, Chapter 2, pg. 170

Quote 34: Tiny is "satisfied with her success, but not elated". Book 4, Chapter 1, pg. 194

Quote 35: Antonia knew in her heart that she is meant to live the country: "I'm a country girl...and I doubt if I'll be able to manage so well for him in a city. I was counting on keeping chickens, and maybe a cow". Book 4, Chapter 3, pg. 199

Quote 36: Antonia knows her destiny; she says, "[E]verybody's put into this world for something, and I know what I've got to do". Book 4, Chapter 4, pg. 206

Quote 37: Jim admits that he did not want to see Antonia "aged and broken". Book 5, Chapter 1, pg. 211

Quote 38: Antonia stands before him, older and more tired-looking, but "in the full vigour of her personality, battered but not diminished". Book 5, Chapter 1, pg. 214

Quote 39: Jim realizes that Antonia "has not lost the fire of life. Her skin, so brown and hardened, had not that look of flabbiness, as if the sap beneath it had been secretly drawn away". Book 5, Chapter 1, pg. 216

Quote 40: "Antonia lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one's breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions...It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races". Book 5, Chapter 1, pg. 226-227