The novel is the highest form of human expression so far attained. Why? Because it is so incapable of the absolute.

Nothing that comes from the deep, passional soul is bad, or can be bad.

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

America exhausts the springs of one's soul - I suppose that's what it exists for. It lives to see all real spontaneity expire. But anyhow it doesn't grind on an old nerve as Europe seems to.

Plant consciousness, insect consciousness, fish consciousness, all are related by one permanent element, which we may call the religious element inherent in all life, even in a flea: the sense of wonder. That is our sixth sense, and it is the natural religious sense.

Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness and atonement — meaning atoneness, the state of being at one with the object.

Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose. Not when they are escaping to some wild west. The most unfree souls go west, and shout of freedom.