Work accomplished means little. It is in the past. What we all want is the glorious and living present.

I think that those of us who are what are called intellectuals make a terrible mistake in overvaluing the yen we have for the arts, books, etc. There is a sweet, fine quality in life that has nothing to do with this, and more and more I find myself valuing myself with those people.

I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them.

When a man publishes a book, there are so many stupid things said that he declares he'll never do it again. The praise is almost always worse than the criticism.

I feel that I am writing out of a full life. I am a rich man, rich in men known, in adventures had. I am rich with living.

The eighteen years he has lived seem but a moment, a breathing space in the long march of humanity. Already he hears death calling. With all his heart he wants to come close to some other human, touch someone with his hands, be touched by the hand of another.

What is to be got at to make the air sweet, the ground good under the feet, can only be got at by failure, trial, again and again and again failure.