One faces the future with one's past.

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

It is difficult not to wonder whether that combination of elements which produces a machine for labor does not create also a soul of sorts, a dull resentful metallic will, which can rebel at times.

All in all, Vermont is a jewel state, small but precious.

The boundary between civilization and barbarism is difficult to draw: put one ring in your nose and you are a savage, put two rings in your ears and you are civilized.

The typhoon came out of the sea first as a deep hollow roar. ... I was surrounded by the madness, the unreason, of uncontrolled, undisciplined energy. None of this made any sense. It was worse than useless - it was nature destroying its own creation - its own self. To create by the long process of growth and then to destroy by a fit of wild emotion - was this not madness, was this not unreason?

The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool.