This is what youth must figure out: Girls, love, and living. The having, the not having, The spending and giving, And the meloncholy time of not knowing. This is what age must learn about: The ABC of dying. The going, yet not going, The loving and leaving, And the unbearable knowing and knowing

A writer's style reveals something of his spirit, his habits, his capacites, his bias...it is the Self escaping into the open.

Too many things on my mind, said Wilbur. Well, said the goose, that's not my trouble. I have nothing at all on my mind, but I've too many things under my behind.

The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.

The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest.

In a sense the world dies every time a writer dies, because, if he is any good, he has been a wet nurse to humanity during his entire existence and has held earth close around him, like the little obstetrical toad that goes about with a cluster of eggs attached to his legs.

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