All greatness in style begins, I imagine, with such respect, deep and passionate enough to produce a humility which will not assert itself at the expense even of inanimate things: out of which submissiveness a desire to serve is born, in disinterested accuracy toward the object, whatever it may be.

One life is an absurdly small allowance.

If we are strong, and have faith in life and its richness of surprises, and hold the rudder steadily in our hands. I am sure we will sail into quiet and pleasant waters for our old age.

I feel like a divorced wife once my book is published and has left me, and hate to be brought back into intimate contact!

Nearly all trouble comes from mis-timing.

Pain and fear and hunger are effects of causes which can be foreseen and known: but sorrow is a debt which someone else makes for us.

Generalizations, one is told, are dangerous. So is life, for that matter, and it is built up on generalization - from the earliest effort of the adventurer who dared to eat a second berry because the first had not killed him.