My publishers will make any kind of a beautiful book I design and send in to them, but ... For poetry they have less use than a rooster would have for skates.

When any man accumulates more than he can earn with his own hands, he begins to enrich himself at the expense of the youth, the sweat, the blood, the joy of his fellow men.

it takes the very wisest person there is to know when to talk, and when to keep still.

If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose.

What you are lies with you. If you are lazy, and accept your lot, you may live in it. If you are willing to work, you can write your name anywhere you choose, among the only ones who live beyond the grave in this world, the people who write books that help, make exquisite music, carve statues, paint pictures, and work for others. Never mind the calico dress, and the coarse shoes. Work at you books, and before long you will hear yesterday's tormentors boasting that they were once classmates of yours.

we know by the odour that occasionally we are visited by skunks, which are not poetic but very beautiful.

a trouble shared is a trouble half endured.