... the most ordinary everyday living is as delicate, as breath-taking, as difficult, takes as terrific physical and mental control and effort, as walking a tightrope.

It is not restful, it is not possible to talk wholeheartedly to more than one person at a time. You can't really talk with a person unless you surrender to them, for the moment (all other talk is futile). You can't surrender to more than one person a moment.

For sleep, one needs endless depths of blackness to sink into; daylight is too shallow, it will not cover one.

the issue of war or peace is an issue that concerns not only experts on Foreign Affairs but every citizen of the United States.

The loneliness you get by the sea is personal and alive. It doesn't subdue you and make you feel abject. It's stimulating loneliness.

Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited Spring.

The world has been forced to its knees. Unhappily, we seldom find our way there without being beaten to it by suffering.