I write as the birds sing, because I must, and usually from the same source of inspiration.

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

the friend in need is the one who is the friend in deed; ... if people were not friends in need, there was every likelihood that they never would be friends again in any conditions that might obtain.

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.

My publishers will make any kind of a beautiful book I design and send in to them, but ... For poetry they have less use than a rooster would have for skates.

Nature can be trusted to work her own miracle in the heart of any man whose daily task keeps him alone among her sights, sounds and silences.

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