Growing old was simply a process of drawing closer to that ultimate independence called death.

But one had to go back to the beginning of things, always. Trace the thread of life - find the knot - untangle it.

The lush green of the fields became a rich gold that swayed sturdily under the wind and fell at last before the hands of the reapers.

it was a sly trick of God's to give a man work to do - it kept him from asking questions that God couldn't answer.

I don't see as it matters much how well you mean if it's harm you're doin'.

By mid-morning a rain as fine as silk spills was weaving over the lake.

A false vision was better than none.

Ah, life, life, how madly, how cruelly it raced along your pulses!

There was nothing so real on the prairie as winter, nothing so memorable.

There is too much doing - too little being! When we begin to get strenuous, life begins to grow intolerable.

Time, designing slowly, swiftly; Time, destroying slowly, swiftly; Time holding, possessing the earth in its tender indifference.

God is my strength and my defense. When I am weak, he makes me strong. When I am broken, he makes me whole.

Alcohol has its own well-know defects as a medication for depression but no one has ever suggested - ask any doctor - that it is not the most effective anti-anxiety agent yet known.

We are what we are, Nial, neither as good or as evil as others paint us. And what we are doesn't change how truly we feel, only how free we are to follow those feelings.

His story is simple, because simple is always best.

Babies are born whole and then they go through experiences in life that chip away at some of that, and it becomes learned behavior.

By different methods different men excel, but where is he who can do all things well?

You're one of 6.5 billion people now on the planet, and 99.9 percent of your genes are the same as everyone else's.

Mystery is not the absence of meaning, but the presence of more meaning than we can comprehend.

Don’t sleep with people who don’t read.

The Cause of Women is generally the Cause of Virtue.