Beyond domestic animals and our response to their fealty and affection, we have a peculiar charge concerning the wild animals which supply our clothes, food and adornments.

Personally, I would not give a fig for any man's religion whose horse, cat and dog do not feel its benefits. Life in any form is our perpetual responsibility.

A little experience often upsets a lot of theory.

Nobody dreams of music in hell, and nobody conceives of heaven without it.

We have abolished human bondage because it cursed those who imposed it. It is now our bounden duty to oppose cruelty to those creatures of our common Father which share with man the mystery of life.

It is not good to have TOO MUCH of anything.

No one can insult me, because I do not want respect.No one can defeat me, because I have given up the idea of winning.How can you defeat me? You can only defeat someone who wants to win.

At one point in your life you have to decide whether you want to become a sachem or a solitary.

Men of God are always men of prayer.

I loved to read, still do, and it seemed that the writing was a result of the love of books and reading and libraries.

What else is there to write about than love and loss?

You can get through very serious and sometimes horrible and sometimes embarrassing and very awkward situations with humor. It gives us a way out.

I think that you can treat a classic like a museum piece -stuffed and mounted- or you can make it a living, breathing narrative that is unfolding right then and there.

My childhood was filled with music and singing and a passion for traditional Yemenite songs, picked up from my mother.

Make the doors upon a woman's wit, and it will out at the casement; shut that, and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.