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.

Primarily I am a passionately religious man, and my novels must be written from the depth of my religious experience.

The only history is a mere question of one's struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.

The near touch of death may be a release into life; if only it will break the egoistic will, and release that other flow.

Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.

Sometimes life takes hold of one, carries the body along, accomplishes one's history, and yet is not real, but leaves oneself as it were slurred over.

Imitate the magnificent trees that speak no word of their rapture, but only breathe largely the luminous breeze.