Forbearance in the face of fate, beauty constant under torture, are not merely passive. They are a positive achievement, an explicit triumph.

(T)here was a story they used to tell at home about a girl whose punishment was that every time she opened her mouth, snakes and toads came out, snakes and toads with every word. The book didn't say what she did about it, but I've always assumed she probably ended up keeping her mouth shut.

What a wonderful phenomenon it is, carefully considered, when the human eye, that jewel of organic structures, concentrates its moist brilliance on another human creature!

Speech is civilization itself.

Distance in a straight line has no mystery. The mystery is in the sphere.

He probably was mediocre after all, though in a very honorable sense of that word.

He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.