what is life worth if one has nothing to give away? This lack, it seems to me, must be the sharpest pang of poverty.

Imagine how terrifying it would be if we had to decide the beginnings of things for ourselves: as to what race we should belong, what sex, and all that, instead of placidly coming out of unconsciousness to find it all arranged!

the various earth odors all have a separate tale to tell, and the leaf mold of the woods bears a wholly different fragrance from that of the soil under pasture turf, or the breath that the garden gives off in great sighs of relief when it is relaxed and refreshed by a summer shower.

I have always noticed that when people consider others eccentric, it is because they are reveling in some form of enjoyment that their critics can neither compass nor share.

Why has no one written a November rhapsody with plenty of lilt and swing? The poets who are moved at all by this month seem only stirred to lamentation, giving us year end and 'melancholy days' remarks, thereby showing that theory is stronger than observation among the rhyming brotherhood, or else that they have chronic indigestion and no gardens to stimulate them.

it is really astonishing how few colors are inharmonious when they are profusely massed and have green for a background.

It doesn't so much matter what one loves. To love is the transfiguring thing.