Dirt's a funny thing,' the Boss said. 'Come to think of it, there ain't a thing but dirt on this green God's globe except what's under water, and that's dirt too. It's dirt makes the grass grow. A diamond ain't a thing in the world but a piece of dirt that got awful hot. And God-a-Mighty picked up a handful of dirt and blew on it and made you and me and George Washington and mankind blessed in faculty and apprehension. It all depends on what you do with the dirt. That right?

I've been to a lot of places and done a lot of things, but writing was always first. It's a kind of pain I can't do without.

...a man does not die for words. He dies for his relation to them.

If you are an idealist, it does not matter what you do or what goes on around you because it isn't real anyway.

Goodness . . . You got to make it out of badness . . . Because there isn't anything else to make it out of.

Dying--shucks! If you kin handle the living, what's to be afraid of the dying?

If something takes too long, something happens to you. You become all and only the thing you want and nothing else, for you have paid too much for it, too much in wanting and too much in waiting and too much in getting.