the most elementary experience of life proves that the effects of compulsion last exactly as long as the physical or moral club can be applied.

the encounter with death is the great turning-point in the lives of those who live on.

The richness and endless variety of human relationships ... that's what authors, even the finest and greatest, only succeed in hinting at. It's a hopeless business, like trying to dip up the ocean with a tea-spoon.

Vermont is the only place in America where I ever hear thrift spoken of with respect.

You can't wish a body any worse luck than to get what he wants.

What's the use of inventing a better system as long as there just aren't enough folks with sense to go around?

It is not good for all our wishes to be filled; through sickness we recognize the value of health; through evil, the value of good; through hunger, the value of food; through exertion, the value of rest.