The road to wisdom is paved with excess. The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and familiarize the strange.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.

My rule has been, so far as I could have any rule (I could have no cast-iron rule) - my rule has been, to write what I have to say the best way I can - then lay it aside - taking it up again after some time and reading it afresh - the mind new to it. If there's no jar in the new reading, well and good - that's sufficient for me.

What is commonest and cheapest and nearest and easiest is Me, Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns, Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me, Not asking the sky to come down to my goodwill, Scattering if freely forever.

Are you the new person drawn toward me?

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

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.