But real life is only one kind of life—there is also the life of the imagination.

I am always humbled by the infite ingenuity of the Lord, who can make a red barn cast a blue shadow.

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers on earth.... Children are game for anything. I throw them hard words and they backhand them across the net.

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

New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute.

Once in everyone's life there is apt to be a period when he is fully awake, instead of half-asleep.

Books are the door of escape from the forest.