The daily lesson of slum life, visualised, reiterated, of low standards, vile living, obscenity, profanity, impurity, is bound tobe dwarfing and debasing to the children who are in the midst of it.

Several generations of slum environment will produce a slum heredity.

... we can bear with great philosophy the sufferings of others, especially if we do not actually see them.

... we see the poor as a mass of shadow, painted in one flat grey wash, at the remote edges of our sunshine.

The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.

What had happened still seemed implausible. A person was present your entire life, and then one day she disappeared and never came back. It resisted belief.

It was wrong to want to touch a scar and call it beautiful.

Because all the words in the world won't do much good if they're just rattling around in your head.

There is no Love Failure but for the Broken Heart.

I really don't know enough about the structure of fiction.

The power to do things for people is also the power to do things to people.

A good four to six weeks is about right for a proper break.

I was in a self-induced depression. Welcome to me Real World.

The good-humor of a man elated with success often displays itself towards enemies.