The greatest of mythologies divided its gods into creators, preservers and destroyers. Tidiness obviously belongs to the second category, which mitigates the terrific impact of the other two.

not wholly consciously, but not quite unconsciously, as far as I can remember, I determined to fashion my future as a sculptor his marble, and there was in it the same mixture of foresight and the unknown. The thing in the mind of the artist takes its way and imposes its form as it wakens under his hand. And so with life.

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

... freshness trembles beneath the surface of Everyday, a joy perpetual to all who catch its opal lights beneath the dust of habit.

... it is a matter of civilizing everyone or not being civilized at all: the decay has always come from a partial civilization.

The true call of the desert, of the mountains, or the sea, is their silence - free of the networks of dead speech.

Christmas... is not an external event at all, but a piece of one's home that one carries in one's heart.