I discovered a long time ago that writing of the small things of the day, the trivial matters of the heart, the inconsequential but near things of this living, was the only kind of creative work which I could accomplish with any sincerity or grace. As a reporter, I was a flop, because I always came back laden not with facts about the case, but with a mind full of the little difficulties and amusements I had encountered in my travels.

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. "Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

Humor is like a frog. You can dissect it to see how it works, but by then, it's dead.

Sometimes a writer, like an acrobat, must try a trick that is too much for him.

There is a period near the beginning of every man's life when he has little to cling to except his unmanageable dream, little to support him except good health, and nowhere to go but all over the place.

People are, if anything, more touchy about being thought silly than they are about being thought unjust.

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they