There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

The voice is a wild thing. It can't be bred in captivity.

The land belongs to the future.

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.

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

Henry Colbert, the miller, always breakfasted with his wife--beyond that he appeared irregularly at the family table.