Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self?

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.

She was not accustomed to taste the joys of solitude except in company.

People struggled on for years with 'troubles,' but they almost always succumbed to 'complications.

Damn words; they're just the pots and pans of life, the pails and scrubbing-brushes. I wish I didn't have to think in words.

A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys.

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