People have to snatch at happiness when they can, in this world. It is always easier to lose than to find.

In great misfortunes, people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love--if once one has ever fallen in.

There seemed to be nothing to see; no fences, no creeks or trees, no hills or fields. If there was a road, I could not make it out in the faint starlight. There was nothing but land: not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

The land belongs to the future.

It does not matter much whom we live with in this world, but it matters a great deal whom we dream of.

I don't want anyone reading my writing to think about style. I just want them to be in the story.

If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift of sympathy is his great gift; is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.