Our bodies can be mobilized by law and police and men with guns, if necessary-but where shall we find that which will make us believe in what we must do, so that we can fight through to victory?

If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all.

Most mothers kiss and scold together.

Fatalism is a false premise. What will be is not necessarily what must be.

Be born anywhere, little embryo novelist, but do not be born under the shadow of a great creed, not under the burden of original sin, not under the doom of Salvation.

Somehow I had learned from Thoreau, who doubtless learned it from Confucius, that if a man comes to do his own good for you, then must you flee that man and save yourself

To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death.