Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together.

No writer, I believe, should attempt a novel before he is thirty, and not then unless he has been hopelessly and helplessly involved in life. For the writer who goes out to find material for a novel, as a fishermen goes out to sea to fish, will certainly not write a good novel. Life has to be lived thoughtlessly, unconsciously, at full tilt and for no purpose except its own sake before it becomes, eventually, good material for a novel.

Anger can give energy to the mind but only if it is harnessed and held in control.

None but the ignorant can be bored by life. To the lovers of learning, life is pure adventure shared with adventurers.

French is the most beautiful,” he said, “and Italian is the most poetic, and Russian the most powerful, German the most solid. But more business is done in English than in any other.

Iowans know themselves and what they are doing. They are doing well.

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that.