For the world was changing, and sweetness was gone, and virtue too. Worry had crept on a corroding world, and what was lost- good manners, ease and beauty? Ladies were not ladies anymore, and you couldn't trust a gentleman's word.

Three hours of writing require twenty hours of preparation. Luckily I have learned to dream about the work, which saves me some working time.

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green. The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.

Write freely and as rapidly as possible and throw the whole thing on paper. Never correct or rewrite until the whole thing is down. Rewrite in process is usually found to be an excuse for not going on.

The American girl makes a servant of her husband and then finds him contemptible for being a servant

Saints can spring from any soil.

Men seem to be born with a debt they can never pay no matter how hard they try.