a trouble shared is a trouble half endured.

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

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

I do not know why it is the fate of the world always to want something different from what life gives them.

How a big majority of book critics and authors have come to believe and to teach that no book is true to life unless it is true to the worst in life, God knows.

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.