Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer.

It has long been a tradition among novel writers that a book must end by everybody getting just what they wanted, or if the conventional happy ending was impossible, then it must be a tragedy in which one or both should die. In real life very few of us get what we want, our tragedies don't kill us, but we go on living them year after year, carrying them with us like a scar on an old wound.

To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.

[Dawn] is always such a forgiving time. When that first cold, bright streak comes over the water, it's as if all our sins were pardoned; as if the sky leaned over the earth and kissed it and gave it absolution.

If youth did not matter so much to itself, it would never have the heart to go on.

Merely having seen the season change in a country gave one the sense of having been there for a long time.

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