The emptiness was intense, like the stillness in a great factory when the machinery stops running.

No one can build his security upon the nobleness of another person.

Of course Nebraska is a storehouse of literary material. Everywhere is a storehouse of literary material. If a true artist were born in a pigpen and raised in a sty, he would still find plenty of inspiration for his work. The only need is the eye to see.

Oh, that's the beauty of the rose, that it blossoms and dies.

In a few hours one could cover that incalculable distance; from the winter country and homely neighbours, to the city where the air trembled like a tuning-fork with unimaginable possibilities.

Sometimes," I ventured, "it doesn't occur to boys that their mother was ever young and pretty. . . I couldn't stand it if you boys were inconsiderate, or thought of her as if she were just somebody who looked after you. You see I was very much in love with your mother once, and I know there's nobody like her.

Wherever humanity has made that hardest of all starts and lifted itself out of mere brutality is a sacred spot.