It is one of the paradoxes of American literature that our writers are forever looking back with love and nostalgia at lives they couldn't wait to leave.

A bookcase is as good as a view, as much of a panorama as the sight of a city or a river. There are dawns and sunsets in books - storms and zephyrs.

To be misunderstood can be the writer's punishment for having disturbed the reader's peace. The greater the disturbance, the greater the possibility of misunderstanding.

In an age like ours, which is not given to letter-writing, we forget what an important part it used to play in people's lives.

Sometimes it seems that we might have been happier if we had once had an aristocracy to blame everything on.

When friends stop being frank and useful to each other, the whole world loses some of its radiance.

I feel about lending a book the way most fathers feel about their daughters living with a man out of wedlock.