The Bard of Boston: Top 10 Quotes About New England: The Land of 'Ironic Pessimism'

December 14, 2011

Top 10 Quotes About New England: The Land of 'Ironic Pessimism'

In no particular order...

"What New England is, is a state of mind, a place where dry humor and perpetual disappointment blend to produce an ironic pessimism that folks from away find most perplexing."

- Willem Lange

"To the rest of the country, New England has always stood in much the same relation as England has to America -- that of spiritual homeland and mother country."

- B.A. Botkin

"New England is quite as large a lump of earth as my heart can really take in."

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"The New England conscience does not stop you from doing what you shouldn't -- it just stops you from enjoying it."

- Cleveland Amory

"The most serious charge which can be brought against New England is not Puritanism but February."

- Joseph Wood Krutch

"New England has a harsh climate, a barren soil, a rough and stormy coast, and yet we love it, even with a love passing that of dwellers in more favored regions."

- Henry Cabot Lodge

"There is no pleasing New Englanders, my dear, their soil is all rocks and their hearts are bloodless absolutes."

- John Updike

“If you don't like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.”

- Mark Twain

“Oh, the ignorance of us upon whom Providence did not sufficiently smile to permit us to be born in New England”

- Horace Porter

"I moved to New England partly because it has a real literary past. The ghosts of Hawthorne and Melville still sit on those green hills. The worship of Mammon is also somewhat lessened there by the spirit of irony. I don't get hay fever in New England either."

- John Updike

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