It is a sadness of growing older that some of us lose our ardent appreciation of what is new and different and difficult.

People make one happy, not houses.

One remembers horrors, I think, for the rest of one's life, but memories do not always remain so sharp, and with time, and new circumstance, do not affect us so powerfully.

You would not think that birds who have no brain at all could become so friendly. I swear some of them are more intelligent than many humans, but that says more about our fellow beings than it does about the birds.

Anyone may have diamonds: an heirloom is an ornament of quite a different kind.

Mountains inspire awe in any human person who has a soul. They remind us of our frailty, our unimportance, of the briefness of our span on this earth. They touch the heavens, and sail serenely at an altitude beyond even the imaginings of a mere mortal.

There was no escaping by means of any journey, however adventurous, one took one's problems and sorrows with one.