The air and the earth interpenetrated in the warm gusts of spring; the soil was full of sunlight, and the sunlight full of red dust. The air one breathed was saturated with earthy smells, and the grass under foot had a reflection of the blue sky in it.

The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

How terrible it was to love people when you could not really share their lives!

Old men are like that, you know. It makes them feel important to think they are in love with somebody.

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

All Southern women wished of their menfolk was simply to be 'like Paris handsome and like Hector brave'.

It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled.