A child's attitude toward everything is an artist's attitude.

The more observing ones may have seen, but discerning people are usually discreet and often kind, for we usually bleed a little before we begin to discern.

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

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

Life was so short that it meant nothing at all unless it were continually reinforced by something that endured; unless the shadows of individual existence came and went against a background that held together.

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

One January day, thirty years ago, the little town of Hanover, anchored on a windy Nebraska tableland, was trying not to be blown away.