Why, why are people all balls of bitter dust? Because they won't fall off the tree when they're ripe. They hang on to their old positions when the position is overpast, till they become infested with little worms and dry-rot.

I hold that the parentheses are by far the most important parts of a non-business letter.

The soul is a very perfect judge of her own motions, if your mind doesn't dictate to her.

Nobody knows you. You don't know yourself. And I, who am half in love with you, What am I in love with? My own imaginings?

Money poisons you when you've got it, and starves you when you haven't.

There is nothing to save, now all is lost, but a tiny core of stillness in the heart like the eye of a violet.

America is neither free nor brave, but a land of tight, iron-clanking little wills, everybody trying to put it over everybody else, and a land of men absolutely devoid of the real courage of trust, trust in life's sacred spontaneity. They can't trust life until they can control it.