It seems to me that the earth may be borrowed but not bought. It may be used but not owned. We are tenants, not possessors, lovers and not masters.

A woman has got to love a bad man once or twice in her life, to be thankful for a good one.

When a wave of love takes over a human being... such an exaltation takes him that he knows he has put his finger on the pulse of the great secret and the great answer.

We cannot live without the Earth or apart from it, and something is shrivelled in a man's heart when he turns away from it and concerns himself only with the affairs of men

I do not understand how anyone can live without some small place of enchantment to turn to.

A woman never forgets the men she could have had; a man, the women he couldn't

Fear is the most easily taught of all lessons, and the fight against terror, real or imagined, is perhaps the history of man's mind.

Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time.

Ants in the house seem to be, not intruders, but the owners.

Readers themselves, I think, contribute to a book. They add their own imaginations, and it is as though the writer only gave them something to work on, and they did the rest.

No man should have proprietary rights over land who does not use that land wisely and lovingly.

I think that women just have a primeval instinct to make soup, which they will try to foist on anybody who looks like a likely candidate.

PhD, MFA, self-taught - the only things you must have to become a writer are the stamina to continue and a wily, cagey heart in the face of extremity, failure, and success.

Things are gradually falling into place on top of me.

The essential test of design is how well it assists the understanding of the content, not how stylish it is.

A writer is essentially a man who does not resign himself to loneliness.

Cruelty must be whitewashed by a moral excuse, and pretense of reluctance.

This tendency to make laws that are convenient or advantageous rather than right has mushroomed.

The greatness of our love of God must be tested by the desire we have of suffering for His love.

I thought it was interesting when [Bill Clinton] said, I married my best friend, because people are always asking, what is the nature of their marriage.

Vision - You dream the impossible; You imagine the incredible; You achieve the extraordinary.