Falling in love is the easiest thing in the world. It's standing in love that matters.

A most mediocre person can be the object of a love which is wild, extravagant, and beautiful as the poison lillies of the swamp.

Coming down was the hardest part of any climbing.

It was better to be in a jail where you could bang the walls than in a jail you could not see.

It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind. With Americans, it is a national trait, as native to us as the roller-coaster or the jukebox. It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.

Imagination takes humility, love and great courage.

We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.