Professional psychologists seem to think that they are the only people who make sense out of human actions. The rest of us know that everybody tries to do just this. What else is gossip?

A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary.

Some people think that doctors and nurses can put scrambled eggs back into the shell.

No Vermont town ever let anybody in it starve.

The actions of a human being, even of fifteen months of age, may not be without significance to a sympathetic eye.

Freedom is not worth fighting for if it means no more than license for everyone to get as much as he can for himself.

What a fearfully distracting, perplexing and heart-searching business it is to live.

One of the many things nobody ever tells you about middle age is that it's such a nice change from being young.

Libraries are the vessels in which the seed corn for the future is stored.

Vermont is the only place in America where I ever hear thrift spoken of with respect.

What's the use of inventing a better system as long as there just aren't enough folks with sense to go around?

After all, damn it, what does being in love mean if you can't trust a person.

In meetings philosophy might work, on the field practicality works.

...I do not know how I can feel this much pain and survive, and at the same time know how much I have to live.

Do I make you nervous?" he said teasingly.

You have to kill to survive. People have been doing it forever. I eat meat, and I eat fish. If I were on a deserted island I would need that to survive.

All writers have the idea that they are famous.

New York is not even a city, it's a congerie of rotten villages.

So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one.

Many people confuse religion with God and walk away from them both. The point isn't Christianity, the point is being a Christian.

I'm sad for adults who want to be children. And children who want to be adults.