Most works are most beautiful without ornament.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

There is no place like it, no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy. It lays its hand upon a man's bowels; he grows drunk with ecstasy; he grows young and full of glory, he feels that he can never die.

Unscrew the locks from the doors ! Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs !

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.

I meet new Walt Whitmans everyday. There are a dozen of them afloat. I don't know which Walt Whitman I am.