it is axiomatic with most writing people that there are no such things as perfect conditions for work.

Peace is not a passive but an active condition, not a negation but an affirmation.

I have never learned to say 'gas' for gasoline. It seems to me as absurd as if I were to say 'but' for butter.

... Washington was not only an important capital. It was a city of fear. Below that glittering and delightful surface there is another story, that of underpaid Government clerks, men and women holding desperately to work that some political pull may at any moment take from them. A city of men in office and clutching that office, and a city of struggle which the country never suspects.

Old men make wars that young men may die.

there comes a time when ambition ceases to burn, or romance to stir, and the highest cry of the human heart is for peace.

We are often miserable at our desk or typewriters, but not happy away from them.