the bliss that comes from ignorance should seldom be encouraged for it is likely to do one out of a more satisfying bliss.

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

There is a privacy about it which no other season gives you.... In spring, summer and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savor belonging to yourself.

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.

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.