Being dead was one thing, getting ready for a wedding another.

The world is full of happy people but no one ever hears of them. You have to fight and make a scandal to get in the papers. No one knows about all the happy people.

There was an exquisitely beautiful conception in my brain when I did this piece of work all alone from midnight until morning after the experience of a wonderful day. But I was not able to make the consummation anywhere nearly as beautiful as the inspiration. That, I suppose, is the cry of every heart struggling for self-expression.

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to force him to lay it down with a higher ideal of life than he had when he took it up.

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.

Being dead was one thing, getting ready for a wedding another.

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.