When God loves a creature he wants the creature to know the highest happiness and the deepest misery ... He wants him to know all that being alive can bring. That is his best gift.... There is no happiness save in understanding the whole.

the whole purport of literature...is the notation of the heart. Style is but the faintly contemptible vessel in which the bitter liquid is recommended to the world.

An incinerator is a writer's best friend.

Leadership is for those who love the public good and are endowed and trained to administer it.

I think I write in order to discover on my shelf a new book that I would enjoy reading, or to see a new play that would engross me.

When you're safe at home you wish you were having an adventure; when you're having an adventure you wish you were safe at home.

But such occasions of excellence became less and less frequent. As her technique became sounder, [her] sincerity became less necessary.