The Red Badge of Courage Quotes

“It was not well to drive men into final corners; at those moments they could all develop teeth and claws.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“He vaguely desired to walk around and around the body and stare; the impulse of the living to try to read in dead eyes the answer to the Question.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“Over the river a golden ray of sun came through the hosts of leaden rain clouds.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“A serious prophet upon predicting a flood should be the first man to climb a tree. This would demonstrate that he was indeed a seer.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“So it came to pass that as he trudged from the place of blood and wrath his soul changed.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“But he said, in substance, to himself that if the earth and moon were about to clash, many persons would doubtless plan to get upon the roofs to witness the collision.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“They were going to look at war, the red
animal--war, the blood-swollen god.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“He did not consider public opinion to be accurate at long range.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold about anything that he might think to be wrong in the ways of the universe, or even with the ways of society. Let the unfortunates rail; the others may play marbles.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“And it was as if fate had betrayed the soldier. In death it exposed to his enemies that poverty which in life he had perhaps concealed from his friends.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“He turned now with a lover's thirst to images of tranquil skies, fresh meadows, cool brooks— an existence of soft and eternal peace.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“The moon had been lighted and was hung in a treetop.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“The lieutenant of the youth's company was shot in the hand. He began to swear so wondrously that a nervous laugh went along the regimental line. The officer's profanity sounded conventional. It relieved the tightened senses of the new men. It was as if he had hit his fingers with a tack hammer at home.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“His feet where retarded.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“The lieutenant, returning from a tour after a bandage, produced from a hidden receptacle of his mind new and portentous oaths suited to the emergency. Strings of expletives he swung lashlike over the backs of his men, and it was evident that his previous efforts had in nowise impaired his resources.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“He now thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied those men whose bodies lay strewn over the grass of the fields and on the fallen leaves of the forest. The simple questions of the tattered man had been knife thrusts to him. They asserted a society that probes pitilessly at secrets until all is apparent. His late companion’s chance persistency made him feel that he could not keep his crime concealed in his bosom. It was sure to be brought plain by one of those arrows which cloud the air and are constantly pricking, discovering, proclaiming those things which are willed to be forever hidden.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage [Adaptation]

“Within him something bade to cry out. He had the impulse to make a rallying speech, to sing a battle hymn, but he could only get his tongue to call into the air: “Why—why—what—what ’s th’ matter?”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge Of Courage

“He had been out among the dragons, he said, and he assured himself that they were not so hideous as he had imagined them. Also,”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“This landscape gave him assurance. A fair field holding life. It was the religion of peace. It would die if its timid eyes were compelled to see blood. He conceived Nature to be a woman with a deep aversion to tragedy.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“Camp fires, like red, peculiar blossoms, dotted the night.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“The fire cackled musically. From it swelled light smoke. Overhead the foliage moved softly. The leaves, with their faces turned toward the blaze, were colored shifting hues of silver, often edged with red. Far off to the right, through a window in the forest could be seen a handful of stars lying, like glittering pebbles, on the black level of the night.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“These happenings had occupied an incredibly short time, yet the youth felt that in them he had been made aged. New eyes were given to him. And the most startling thing was to learn suddenly that he was very insignificant. The officer spoke of the regiment as if he referred to a broom. Some part of the woods needed sweeping, perhaps, and he merely indicated a broom in a tone properly indifferent to its fate. It was war, no doubt, but it appeared strange.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“The shadows of the woods were formidable. He was certain that in this vista there lurked fierce-eyed hosts. The swift thought came to him that the generals did not know what they were about. It was all a trap. Suddenly those close forests would bristle with rifle barrels.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“Whatever he had learned of himself was of no avail. He was an unknown quantity.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage

“Tottering among them was the rival color bearer, whom the youth saw had been bitten vitally by the bullets of the last formidable volley. He perceived this man fighting a last struggle, the struggle of one whose legs are grasped by demons. It was a ghastly battle. Over his face was the bleach of death, but set upon it were the dark and hard lines of desperate purpose. With this terrible grin of resolution he hugged his precious flag to him and was stumbling and staggering in his design to go the way that led to safety for it.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage [Adaptation]

“as he saw their dripping corpses on an imagined field, he said that he was their murderer. Again he thought that he wished he was dead. He believed that he envied a corpse. Thinking of the slain, he achieved a great contempt for some of them, as if they were guilty for thus becoming lifeless. They might have been killed by lucky chances, he said, before they had had opportunities to flee or before they had been really tested. Yet they would receive laurels from tradition. He cried out bitterly that their crowns were stolen and their robes of glorious memories were shams. However, he still said that it was a great pity he was not as they.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage [Adaptation]

“A dead soldier was stretched with his face hidden in his arm. Farther off there was a group of four or five corpses keeping mournful company. A hot sun had blazed upon the spot. In this place the youth felt that he was an invader. This forgotten part of the battleground was owned by the dead men, and he hurried, in the vague apprehension that one of the swollen forms would rise and tell him to begone.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage [Adaptation]

“They were going to look at war, the red animal—war, the blood-swollen god. And they were deeply engrossed in this march.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage [Adaptation]

“Eventually, his courage expended itself upon these objections. The debates drained him of his fire.”
― Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage