People that trust themselves a dozen miles from the city, in strange houses, with servants they don't know, needn't be surprised if they wake up some morning and find their throats cut.

Death was a beginning and not an end; it was the morning of the spirit. Tired bodies lay down to sleep and their souls wakened to the morning, rested; the first fruits of them that slept.

Courage was America's watchword, but a courage of the body rather than of the soul - physical courage, not moral.

The only way to make a husband over according to one's ideas ... would be to adopt him at an early age, say four.

Used to move so much, every time the chickens saw the team put in the wagon, they'd lie down on their backs and hold their legs up to be tied!

there is something shameful about the death of a play. It does not die with pity, but contempt. A book may fail, but who is there to know it? It dies and is buried, and is decently interred on the bookseller's shelf; but the play dies to laughter, to scorn and disdain.

Herbert used to say that he was as tight as the paper on the wall.