Perhaps he had to be close in order to keep a reason for the things he did. To make the things he did be themselves Life. And not merely a delightful exercise of technical skill which man had been able to achieve because he, of all the animals, had a fine thumb. Which is nonsense, for whatever you live is Life.

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

Maybe a man has to sell his soul to get the power to do good.

Storytelling and copulation are the two chief forms of amusement in the South. They're inexpensive and easy to procure.

There ain't anything worth doing a man can do and keep his dignity. Can you figure out a single thing you really please-God like to do you can do and keep your dignity? The human frame just ain't built that way.

For what is a poem but a hazardous attempt at self-understanding: it is the deepest part of autobiography.

More and more Emerson recedes grandly into history, as the future he predicted becomes a past.