It seems stupid to have discovered America only to make it into a copy of another country.

Poetry and art are the breath of life to her.

We shall hurt others less. Isn't it, after all, what you always wanted?

And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them.

traditions that have lost their meaning are the hardest of all to destroy.

True originality consists not in a new manner but in a new vision. That new, that personal, vision is attained only by looking long enough at the object represented to make it the writer's own; and the mind which would bring this secret gem to fruition must be able to nourish it with an accumulated wealth of knowledge and experience.

Most timidities have such secret compensations and Miss Bart was discerning enough to know that the inner vanity is generally in proportion to the outer self depreciation.