The fact that I was a girl never damaged my ambitions to be a pope or an emperor.

The condition every art requires is, not so much freedom from restriction, as freedom from adulteration and from the intrusion of foreign matter.

The heart of another is a dark forest, always, no matter how close it has been to one's own.

I wanted to walk straight on through the red grass and over the edge of the world, which could not be very far away. The light and air abot me told me that the world ended here: only the ground and sun and sky were left, and if one went a little farther there would only be sun and sky, and one would float off into them, like the tawny hawks which sailed over our heads making slow shadows on the grass.

Your vivid, exciting companionship in the office must not be your audience, you must find your own quiet center of life, and write from that to the world.

It takes a great deal of experience to become natural.

The only thing very noticeable about Nebraska was that it was still, all day long, Nebraska.