The fact that we still live well cannot ease the feeling that we no longer live nobly.

Art imitates Nature in this; not to dare is to dwindle.

...but with his mother there's no question of liking him they're not even in a way separate people he began in her stomach and if she gave him life she can take it away and if he feels that withdrawal it will be the grave itself.

As souls must cry when they awaken in tiny babies and find themselves far from heaven

It is not enough for a story to flow. It has to kind of trickle and glint as it crosses over the stones of the bare facts.

Photography is the first art wherein the tool does most of the work.

It skims in through the eye, and by means of the utterly delicate retina hurls shadows like insect legs inward for translation. Then an immense space opens up in silence and an endlessly fecund sub-universe the writer descends, and asks the reader to descend after him, not merely to gain instructions but also to experience delight, the delight of mind freed from matter and exultant in the strength it has stolen from matter.