The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper – whether little or great, it belongs to Literature.
Some set more by such things as come from a distance, but I rec’lect mother always used to maintain that folks was meant to be doctored with the stuff that grew right about ’em.
It is not often given in a noisy world to come to the places of great grief and silence.
Do not hurry too fast in these early winter days, – a quiet hour is worth more to you than anything you can do in it.
Imagination is the only true thing in the world!
What’s everybody’s business is nobody’s business...
Who was it said that you never get to a place until a day after you come, nor leave it until a day after you go?
Don’t scatter your fire! You are a prose writer: stick to your own tool!
Write it as it is, don’t try to make it like this or that. You can’t do it in anybody else’s way-you will have to make a way of your own.
A story should be managed so that it should suggest interesting things to the reader instead of the author’s doing all the thinking for him, and setting it before him in black and white.
Love isn’t blind; it’s only love that sees!
Satisfaction, even after one has dined well, is not so interesting and eager a feeling as hunger.
There’s some herb that’s good for everybody, except for them that thinks they’re sick when they ain’t.
Life was resumed, and anxious living blew away as if it had not been. I could not breathe deep enough or long enough. It was a return to happiness.
God would not give us the same talent if what were right for men were wrong for women.
A harbor, even if it is a little harbor, is a good thing, since adventurers come into it as well as go out, and the life in it grows strong, because it takes something from the world, and has something to give in return.
It does seem so pleasant to talk with an old acquaintance who knows what you know. I see so many new folks nowadays who seem to have neither past nor future. Conversation has got to have some root in the past, or else you have got to explain every remark you make, and it wears a person out.
The old poets little knew what comfort they could be to a man.
A lean sorrow is hardest to bear.
Wrecked on the lee shore of age.