perhaps all this modern ferment of what's known as 'social conscience' or 'civic responsibility' isn't a result of the sense of duty, but of the old, old craving for beauty.

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?

The artist like the God of the creation remains within or behind or beyond or above his handiwork invisible refined out of existence indifferent paring his fingernails.

After trying Atkins and doing Nutrisystem a few times, now I'm just focused on maintaining a healthy lifestyle rather than dieting.

People find gold in fields, veins, river beds, and pockets. Whichever, it takes work to get it out.

We are not called to proclaim philosophy and metaphysics, but the simple gospel.

Nothing is more curious than the almost savage hostility that Humour excites in those who lack it.

You're buying years of work, toil in the sun; you're buying a sorrow that can't talk.

I don't love traveling, because I'm never home. It's hard when you have a family.

He was one of those earnest, persevering dancers--the kind that have taken twelve correspondence lessons.

Don't be a hero. Don't have an ego. Always question yourself and your ability. Don't ever feel that you are very good. The second you do, you are dead.

It occurred to me that I was standing face to face with the hero of a love story nearly as dramatic as my own.