If you live in the same small place long enough, something you don't like is bound to happen

among a coward's weapons, cynicism is the nastiest of all

I'm going to a commune in Vermont and will deal with no unit of time shorter than a season.

The problem is fundamental... It is as if a secret committee, now lost to history, has made a study of children and, having figured out what the greatest number were least disposed to declared that all of them should do it.

The hardest thing was learning to write. I was 13, and the only writing I had done was for Social Studies. It consisted of copying passages right out of the encyclopedia

I am grateful to Stacy Schiff first of all because she can write a sentence-because she offers us her scholarship with wit, clarity, and grace. Once again, she has done what only the best writers can do: she has made the world new, again.

Don't worry about being worried. You're heading out on an adventure and you can always change your mind along the way and try something else.