History is not the proper midden for digging up novelties. Perhaps that is one reason why a nation bent on novelty ignores it.

The brook would lose its song if we removed the rocks.

There is nothing like a doorbell to precipitate the potential into the kinetic.

In fiction I think we should have no agenda but to tell the truth.

Homesickness is a great teacher. It taught me, during an endless rainy fall, that I came from the arid lands, and like where I came from. I was used to dry clarity and sharpness in the air. I was used to horizons that either lifted into jagged ranges or rimmed the geometrical circle of the flat world. I was used to seeing a long way. I was used to earth colors--tan, rusty red, toned white--and the endless green of Iowa offended me. I was used to a sun that came up over mountains and went down behind other mountains. I missed the color and smell of sagebrush, and the sight of bare ground.

You can't retire to weakness -- you've got to learn to control strength.

It is almost impossible to write fiction about the Mormons, for the reason that Mormon institutions and Mormon society are so peculiar that they call for constant explanation.