A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.

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

You think religion is what's inside a little building filled with pretty lights from stained glass windows. But it's not. It's wings! Wings!

Almost anything is enough to keep alive someone who wishes nothing for himself but time to write music.

What is life, but one long risk?

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

The teachers of small children are paid more than they were, but still far less than the importance of their work deserves, and they are still regarded by the unenlightened majority as insignificant compared to those who impart information to older children and adolescents, a class of pupils which, in the nature of things, is vastly more able to protect its own individuality from the character of the teacher.