It was said of Miss Letitia that when money came into her possession it went out of circulation.

my family, although it keeps its hair, turns gray early - a business asset but a social handicap.

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.

[When working on a book] I have an almost complete detachment from the world I live in, a sort of armor against distraction. I talk to people, move about, appear on the surface much as usual. But later on I have only a confused memory of what has happened during that period.

Every writer knows the terror of an unexpected success. How to carry on? How to repeat it?

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

A little work, a little sleep, a little love and it's all over.