Loneliness is a strange gift.

Commuters give the city its tidal restlessness, natives give it solidity and continuity, but the settlers give it passion.

A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines. The island of Manhattan is without any doubt the greatest human concentrate on earth, the poem whose magic is comprehensible to millions of permanent residents but whose full meaning will always remain elusive.

Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.

Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.

Make the work interesting and the discipline will take care of itself.

Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.