Why is it that you can sometimes feel the reality of people more keenly through a letter than face to face?

The most exhausting thing in life is being insincere.

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

By and large, mothers and housewives are the only workers who do not have regular time off. They are the great vacationless class.

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach - waiting for a gift from the sea.

Men kick friendship around like a football, but it doesn't seem to crack. Women treat it like glass and it goes to pieces.

I feel we are all islands - in a common sea.

A simple enough pleasure, surely, to have breakfast alone with one's husband, but how seldom married people in the midst of life achieve it.

My passport photo is one of the most remarkable photographs I have ever seen- no retouching, no shadows, no flattery-just stark me.

When I cannot write a poem, I bake biscuits and feel just as pleased.

Don't wish me happiness - I don't expect to be happy it's gotten beyond that, somehow. Wish me courage and strength and a sense of humor - I will need them all.

Do not take negative criticisms to heart.

I can't change my personality. I'll always smile, but I'll be more focused.

The ingredients of a hamburger seldom vary. It's a percentage of fat to lean meat, add salt and prepare and that's it. It shouldn't need a recipe.

Command is often not what you do but the way you do it.

Turn your midlife crisis to your own advantage by making it a time for renewal of your body and mind, rather than stand by helplessly and watch them decline.

Not every love, but only that which has a noble purpose, is noble and worthy of praise.

We have no right to come before God at all, apart from the finished work of Christ.

Do not let fear of failure overwhelms joy success

If you ask 20 different readers why they read, they will all be right.

Many of the opposition [to the new Federal Constitution] wish to take from Congress the power of internal taxation. Calculation has convinced me that this would be very mischievous.