I'm a humanist; I'd rather kill a man than a snake.

Indolence and melancholy: Each generates the other. If one can speak of such feeble passions as generating anything.

For myself I hold no preferences among flowers, so long as they are wild, free, spontaneous. Bricks to all greenhouses! Black thumb and cutworm to the potted plant!

What we need now are heroes and heroines, about a million of them, one brave deed is worth a thousand books. Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul.

We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; without courage, the other virtues are useless.

My own best books have not been published. In fact, they've not even been written yet.

Running the big rapids is like sex: half the fun lies in the anticipation. Two thirds of the thrill with the approach. The remainder is only ecstasy-or darkness.