I do not believe there is any one study that can be taken up that will broaden the imagination, that will be the source from which will spring more deep thinking and sincere research than the study of astronomy.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

The wages of sin are the hardest debts on earth to pay, and they are always collected at inconvenient times and unexpected places.