A soup like this is not the work of one man. It is the result of a constantly refined tradition. There are nearly a thousand years of history in this soup.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent.

Life began for me, when I ceased to admire and began to remember.

Artistic growth is, more than it is anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfulness.

Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

Many people seem to think that art is a luxury to be imported and tacked on to life. Art springs out of the very stuff that life is made of. Most of our young authors start to write a story and make a few observations from nature to add local color. The results are invariably false and hollow. Art must spring out of the fullness and richness of life.

Our tree became the talking tree of the fairy tale; legends and stories nestled like birds in its branches.