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

To my way of thinking and working, the greatest service a piece of fiction can do any reader is to leave him with a higher ideal of life than he had when he began. If in one small degree it shows him where he can be...gentler, saner, cleaner, kindlier...it is a wonder-working book. If it opens his eyes to one beauty in nature he never saw for himself and leads him one step toward the God of the Universe, it is a beneficial book.

Is he well educated?" "Yes, I think so, as far as he's gone," I answered. "Of course he will go on being educated every day of his life, same as father. He says it is all rot about 'finishing' your education. You never do. You learn more important things each day.

there was nothing in the whole world so dreadful as the power of riches wrongly used.

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

The seasons run with swift feet.

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