It is difficult to be emphatic when no one is emphatic on the other side.

The excellence of a gift lies in its appropriateness rather than in its value

Goodness comes out of people who bask in the sun, as it does out of a sweet apple roasted before the fire.

Lettuce is like conversation; it must be fresh and crisp, so sparkling that you scarcely notice the bitter in it.

It is fortunate that each generation does not comprehend its own ignorance. We are thus enabled to call our ancestors barbarous.

There is no moment of delight in any pilgrimage like the beginning of it.

To own a bit of ground, to scratch it with a hoe, to plant seeds, and watch the renewal of life - this is the commonest delight of the race, the most satisfactory thing a man can do.

Mud-pies gratify one of our first and best instincts. So long as we are dirty, we are pure.

A cynic might suggest as the motto of modern life this simple legend-"just as good as the real.

Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do; but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being.

Nature is, in fact, a suggester of uneasiness, a promoter of pilgrimages and of excursions of the fancy which never come to any satisfactory haven.

A single thought can shift your entire world.

Love is the story and the prayer that matters the most.

Some people need significance more than they need another person. Change will only happen in a relationship when you realize it is not the person, but the "emotion" you desire.

Tis sweet to hear the watchdog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home.

"Chocolate mustache" is from a line in the book. It's my favorite title (chosen by me), so I'm pleased that Never Spit was tossed.

I don't really know where my ideas come from. I start with a time and a place. That's what I need to get started, and an intellectual question.

At the end of the day, a loving family should find everything forgivable.

Dumb. He should have gotten the pen. Jewelry was so public... and personal, which was why he'd bought it. He couldn't buy Eleanor a pen. Or a bookmark. He didn't have bookmarklike feelings for her.

Rise and put on your foliage, and be seen To come forth, like the springtime, fresh and green

I think the East India Company represents what we would think of as a very modern approach to the world where everything was counted, every penny was counted.