... 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.

[On the Irish:] Strange race ... Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil.

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!

When a great burden is lifted, the relief is not always felt at once. The galled places still ache.

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

Great loves were almost always great tragedies. Perhaps it was because love was never truly great until the element of sacrifice entered into it.

Well, that was life. It was an old tree, and the old passed on. Probably they did not mind. There came a time when all sap ran slowly, and the peace of age with all things behind it merged easily into the peace of death. The difficult thing was to be young.