Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a long while, it will be true.

A wife is like a children's movie; always under-appreciated and without either, life would be incomplete.

There is nothing pleasanter than spading when the ground is soft and damp.

In literary criticism the critic has no choice but to make over the victim of his attention into something the size and shape of himself.

That man who is more then his elements knows the land that is more than its analysis.

Teaching might even be the greatest of the arts since the medium is the human mind and spirit. My three [great teachers] did not tell - they catalyzed a burning desire to know. Under their influence, the horizons sprung wide and fear went away and the unknown became knowable. But most important of all, the truth, that dangerous stuff, became beautiful and very precious.

We are lonesome animals. We spend all our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say — and to feel — "Yes, that’s the way it is, or at least that’s the way I feel it. You’re not as alone as you thought."