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.

no one in the whole world knows all a man's bignesses and all his littlenesses as his wife does.

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.

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.

The Cardinal ... It was as if a pulsing heart of flame passed by when he came winging through the orchard.

I write as the birds sing, because I must, and usually from the same source of inspiration.

You cannot write on the heart of another what you do not feel yourself.