And when that crop grew, and was harvested, no man had crumbled a hot clod in his fingers and let the earth sift past his fingertips. No man had touched the seed, or lusted for the growth. Men ate what they had not raised, had no connection with the bread. The land bore under iron, and under iron gradually died; for it was not loved or hated, it had no prayers or curses.

You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.

I was born lost and take no pleasure in being found.

If there is a magic in story writing, and I am convinced there is, no one has ever been able to reduce it to a recipe that can be passed from one person to another.

The trash and litter of nature disappears into the ground with the passing of each year, but man's litter has more permanence.

Good God, what a mess of draggle-tail impulses a man is--and a woman too, I guess.

They successfully combined piracy and puritanism, which aren't so unlike when you come right down to it. Both had a strong dislike for opposition and both had a roving eye for other people's property.