You know how some people seem to think that their love for classical music makes them spiritual or at least something quite special? And others who think you are a monster if you don't 'love children,' however obnoxious the children may be? Well, I found out that many people who love flowers look down on those who don't.

Farmers are philosophical; they have learned that it is less wearing to shrug than to beat their breasts. But there is another angle to their attitude. Things happen rapidly in the country; something new always comes along to divert them and it isn't necessarily another calamity.

Farmers are philosophical. They have learned that it is less wearing to shrug than to beat their breasts.

If 'heartache' sounds exaggerated then surely you have never gone to your garden one rare morning in June to find that the frost, without any perceptible motive, any hope of personal gain, has quietly killed your strawberry blossoms, tomatoes, lima and green beans, corn, squash, cucumbers. A brilliant sun is now smiling at this disaster with an insenstive cheerfulness as out of place as a funny story would be if someone you loved had just died.

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

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.

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