There is nothing for the modern man or woman to fear about most cases of cancer. Nothing except delay.

That is the tragedy of growing old, Chris. You don't leave the world. It leaves you.

I suppose there is something in all of us that harks back to the soil. When you come to think of it, what are picnics but outcroppings of instinct? No one really enjoys them or expects to enjoy them, but with the first warm days some prehistoric instinct takes us out into the woods, to fry potatoes over a strangling wood fire or spend the next week getting grass stains out of our clothes. It must be instinct; every atom of intelligence warns us to stay at home near the refrigerator.

the calm of a place like Bellwood is the peace of death without the hope of resurrection.

The writing career is not a romantic one. The writer's life may be colorful, but his work itself is rather drab.

Old men make wars that young men may die.

What a tragedy it was that the only thing age could offer to youth was its own experience, and that the experiences of others were never profitable.