I am glad I worked on a newspaper because it made me know I had to write whether I felt like it or not.

Even though you've given up a past it hasn't given you up. It comes uninvited - and sometimes half welcome.

They made small effort to cover their raw souls with the mantle of commonplace words.

Chicago is many things to many people, and to me, it is a place where you can write.

I go about in the world - free, busy, happy. Among people, I have no time to think of myself.

But mayn't desertion be a brave thing? A fine thing? To desert a thing we've gone beyond - to have the courage to desert it and walk right off from the dead thing to the live thing - ?

Strength diminishes when it seems we are spending it in vain.