I'm glad I did it, partly because it was worth it, but mostly because I shall never have to do it again.

I find no change of consequence in grown people, I do not miss the dead. It does not surprise me to hear that this friend or that friend died at such and such a time, because I fully expected that sort of news. But somehow I had made no calculation on the infants. It never occurred to me that infants grow up...These unexpected changes, from infancy to youth, and from youth to maturity, are by far the most startling things I meet with.

To arrive at a just estimate of a renowned man's character one must judge it by the standards of his time, not ours.

There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.

I think that the reason why we Americans seem to be so addicted to trying to get rich suddenly is merely because the opportunity to make promising efforts in that direction has offered itself to us with a frequency out of all proportion to the European experience.

Eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.

You know that kind of quiver that trembles around through you when you are seeing something so strange and enchanting and wonderful that it is just a fearful joy to be alive and look at it; and you know how you gaze, and your lips turn dry and your breath comes short, but you wouldn't be anywhere but there, not for the world.