Four hoarse blasts of a ship's whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping.

There is no lostness like that which comes to a man when a perfect and certain pattern has dissolved about him.

A dog is a bond between strangers.

It occurs to me that just as the Carthaginians hired mercenaries to do their fighting for them, we Americans being in mercenaries to do our hard and humble work. I hope we may not be overwhelmed one day by peoples not too proud or too lazy or too soft to bend to the earth and pick up the things we eat.

He learned that when people are very poor they still have something to give and the impulse to give it.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

Liza poured thick batter from a pitcher onto a soapstone griddle. The hot cakes rose like little hassocks, and small volcanoes formed and erupted on them until they were ready to be turned. A cheerful brown, they were, with tracings of darker brown. And the kitchen was full of the good sweet smell of them.