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

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.

Of two evils, I always choose the lesser.

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.

We never know the timber of a man's soul until something cuts into him deeply and brings the grain out strong. You've the making of a mighty fine piece of furniture.

the occasional cries of a lost loon, strayed from its flock in northern migration, fill the swamp with sounds of wailing.

I know men and women. An honourable man is an honourable man, and a liar is a liar; both are born and not made. One cannot change to the other any more than that same old leopard can change its spots. After a man tells a woman the first untruth of that sort, the others come piling thick, fast, and mountain high.