You think that their dying is the worst thing that could happen. Then they stay dead.

Great literature, if we read it well, opens us up to the world and makes us more sensitive to it, as if we acquired eyes that could see through things and ears that could hear smaller sounds.

Mere literary talent is common; what is rare is endurance, the continuing desire to work hard at writing.

I wish you were that birch rising from the clump behind you, and I the gray oak alongside.

Can build plane... Delivery about three months.

If work is no antidote to death, nor a denial of it, death is a powerful stimulus to work. Get done what you can.

Every now and then I meet someone certain of personal greatness. I want to pat this person on the shoulder and mutter comforting words: "Things will get better! You won't always feel so depressed! Cheer up!"