Maybe the hardest thing in writing is simply to tell the truth about things as we see them.

I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger.

For every man in the world functions to the best of his ability, and no one does less than his best, no matter what he may think about it.

I think today if we forbade our illiterate children to touch the wonderful things of our literature, perhaps they might steal them and find secret joy.

Life cannot be cut off quickly. One cannot be dead until the things he changed are dead. His effect is the only evidence of his life. While there remains even a plaintive memory, a person cannot be cut off, dead. And he thought, “It’s a long slow process for a human to die. We kill a cow, and it is dead as soon as the meat is eaten, but a man’s life dies as a commotion in a still pool dies, in little waves, spreading and growing back toward stillness.

It is the nature of man to rise to greatness if greatness is expected of him.

The impulse of the American woman to geld her husband and castrate her sons is very strong.