I've always had a weakness for lost causes once they're really lost.

Death, taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time for any of them.

Times were so hard it was difficult to feed and lodge humans, much less animals.

What’s broken is broken—and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I live…I’m too old to believe in such sentimentalities as clean slates and starting all over.

Why will people persist in reading strange meanings into the simplest of story? Is it not enough that a writer can entertain for a few hours with narrative without being suspected of 'significances' or symbolism or 'social trends'?

Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it's no worse than it is.

[T]he merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured.