But one day we shall be rich, and the next poor. One day we shall dine in a palace and the next we'll sit in a forest and toast mushrooms on a hatpin.

Why! Why! Why is the middle-class so stodgy - so utterly without a sense of humor?

In fact, isn't it a joy - there is hardly a greater one - to find a new book, a living book, and to know that it will remain with you while life lasts?

I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this, the expression of this, I want to be writing (Though I may write about cabmen. That’s no matter.) But warm, eager, living life — to be rooted in life — to learn, to desire, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.

To work - to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.

When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.