The main thing I try to do is write as clearly as I can. I rewrite a good deal to make it clear.

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

There's no limit to how complicated things can get, on account of one thing always leading to another.

I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.

Genius is more often found in a cracked pot than in a whole one.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do, In spider’s web a truth discerning, Attach one silken strand to you For my returning.