An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.

Some men ease themselves like setting hens into the nest of death.

He can kill anything for need but he could not even hurt a feeling for pleasure.

Critics are the eunuchs of literature. They stand by in envious awe while the whole man and his partner demonstrate the art of living.

I have written a great many stories and I still don't know how to go about it except to write it and take my chances.

To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth.

There used to be a thing or a commodity we put great store by. It was called the People. Find out where the People have gone. I don't mean the square-eyed toothpaste-and-hair-dye people or the new-car-or-bust people, or the success-and-coronary people. Maybe they never existed, but if there ever were the People, that's the commodity the Declaration was talking about, and Mr. Lincoln.