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.

Nothing mattered ... but writing books, and living the kind of life that made it possible to write them.

Youth, art, love, dreams, true-heartedness - why must they go out of the summer world into darkness?

In New Mexico, he always awoke a young man, not until he arose and began to shave did he realize that he was growing older. His first consciousness was a sense of the light dry wind blowing in through the windows, with the fragrance of hot sun and sage-brush and sweet clover; a wind that made one's body feel light and one's heart cry 'To-day, to-day,' like a child's.

What was any art but a mould in which to imprison for a moment the shining elusive element which is life itself - life hurrying past us and running away, too strong to stop, too sweet to lose.

There was a new kind of strength in the gravity of her face, and her colors still gave her that look of deep-seated health and ardor.

That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.