To mourn was distressing, but to endeavor to mourn and fail was worse than distress.

I don't like human nature, but I do like human beings.

... though not invariably the worst choice, war is always an obscene horror.

The truth is I've got the land on my back, an' it's drivin' me. Land is a hard driver.

I would write of the universal, not the provincial, in human nature.... I would write of characters, not of characteristics.

...America has enjoyed the doubtful blessing of a single-track mind. We are able to accommodate, at a time, only one national hero; and we demand that that hero shall be uniform and invincible. As a literate people we are preoccupied, neither with the race nor the individual, but with the type. Yesterday, we romanticized the "tough guy;" today, we are romanticizing the underprivileged, tough or tender; tomorrow, we shall begin to romanticize the pure primitive.

I had no place in any coterie, or in any reciprocal self-advertising. I stood alone. I stood outside. I wanted only to learn. I wanted only to write better.