I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.

I was under twenty when I deliberately put it to myself one night after good conversation that there are moments when we actually touch in talk what the best writing can only come near. The curse of our book language is not so much that it keeps forever to the same set phrases . . . but that it sounds forever with the same reading tones. We must go out into the vernacular for tones that haven't been brought to book.

The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days Before the coming of the snow.

One age is like another for the soul.

The sun was warm but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.

I came from a very intellectual neighborhood. When we played cowboys and Indians as kids, I had to be Gandhi.