To the Memory of those faithful brown slave-men of the plantations throughout the South, Daddy's contemporaries all, who during the war while their masters were away fighting in a cause opposed to their emancipation, brought their blankets and slept outside their mistresses' doors, thus keeping night-watch over otherwise unprotected women and children -- a faithful guardianship of which the annals of those troublous times record no instance of betrayal.

The central paradox and challenge of marriage is that we have to make family out of someone we're not related to.

It’s a fair-sized job to write a book that people can be bothered just to read; when they begin to steal copies, you are really getting some place.

Only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.

The unmulched garden looks to me like some naked thing which for one reason or another would be better off with a few clothes on.

Why do people who like to get up early look with disdain on those who like to lie in bed late? And why do people who like to work feel superior to those who prefer to dream?

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet in a garden.