All writing is communication; creative writing is communication through revelation-it is the Self-escaping into the open.

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

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.

In a free country it is the duty of writers to pay no attention to duty.

Children hold spring so tightly in their brown fists-just as grownups, who are less sure of it, hold it in their hearts.

I have a spaniel that defrocked a nun last week. He took hold of the cord. I had hold of the leash. It was like elephants holding tails. Imagine me undressing a nun, even second hand.

Who can confidently say what ignites a certain combination of words, causing them to explode in the mind? Who knows why certain notes in music are capable of stirring the listener deeply, though the same notes slightly rearranged are impotent? These are high mysteries, and this chapter is a mystery story, thinly disguised.