Why is it that no other species but man gets bored? Under the circumstances in which a man gets bored, a dog goes to sleep.

Like many young men in the South, he had trouble ruling out the possible. They are not like an immigrant's son in Passaic who desires to become a dentist and that is that. Southerners have trouble ruling out the possible. What happens to a... man to whom all things seem possible and every course of action open? Nothing of course.

I don't like to be described as a Southern writer. The danger is, if you're described as a Southern writer, you might be thought of as someone who writes about a picturesque local scene like Uncle Tom's Cabin, Gone With the Wind, something like that.

Why is it that one can look at a lion or a planet or an owl or at someone's finger as long as one pleases, but looking into the eyes of another person is, if prolonged past a second, a perilous affair?

It makes people nervous for one to step out of one's role.

Where there is chance of gain, there is also chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise.

But there is much to be said for giving up ... grand ambitions and living the most ordinary life imaginable.