[Whenever] you get near the human race, there's layers and layers of nonsense.

If you write to impress it will always be bad, but if you write to express it will be good

People a thousand years from now - this is the way we were in the provinces north of New York at the beginning of the 20th century. This is the way we were: in our growing up and in our marrying and in our living and in our living and in our dying.

We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. -stage manager, in the play OUR TOWN

Throughout the hours of the night, though there had been few to hear it, the whole sky had been loud with the singing of these constellations.

Only it seems to me that once in your life before you die you ought to see a country where they don't talk in English and don't even want to.

It is very necessary to have markers of beauty left in a world seemingly bent on making the most evil ugliness.