A perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do anything that man or woman or the natural powers can do.

I exist as I am, that is enough.

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots.

The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.

Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?

Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.