As a farm girl, even when I was quite young, I had my 'farm chores' - but I had time also to be alone, to explore the fields, woods and creek side. And to read.

It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own.

A daydreamer is prepared for most things.

Shakespeare would seem to have been a person for whom the human voice/personality in all its splendid idiosyncrasy was absolutely enthralling.

[Emily] Dickinson, our supreme poet of inwardness.

Writers and artists never pay attention to advice given by their elders, quite rightly. The only worthwhile advice is the most general: Keep trying, don't give up, don't be discouraged, don't pay attention to detractors. Everyone knows this.

The worst cynicism: a belief in luck.