The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.

It sometimes takes days, even weeks, before a dog's nerves tire. In the case of terriers it can run into months.

Deathlessness should be arrived at in a... haphazard fashion. Loving fame as much as any man, we shall carve our initials in the shell of a tortoise and turn him loose in a peat bog.

If I can fool a bug... I can surely fool a man. People are not as smart as bugs.

From morning till night, sounds drift from the kitchen, most of them familiar and comforting. . . . On days when warmth is the most important need of the human heart, the kitchen is the place you can find it; it dries the wet sock, it cools the hot little brain.

To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.

The whole duty of a writer is to please and satisfy himself, and the true writer always plays to an audience of one.