The mind that doggedly insists on prejudice often has not intelligence enough to change.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

Never, if you can possibly help it, write a novel. It is, in the first place, a thoroughly unsocial act. It makes one obnoxious to one's family and to one's friends. One sits about for many weeks, months, even years, in the worst cases, in a state of stupefaction.

music is not technique and melody, but the meaning of life itself, infinitely sorrowful and unbearably beautiful.

Vermont is a country unto itself.

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

As for New York City, it is a place apart. There is not its match in any other country in the world.