Quotes

Where there is great love, there are always wishes.

The trouble with being poor is that it takes up all your time.

Some memories are realities, and are better than anything that can ever happen to one again.

If youth did not matter so much to itself it would never have the heart to go on.

The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

Most of the basic material a writer works with is acquired before the age of fifteen.

]on love] From the beginning women understand devotion, it is a natural grace with them; they have only to learn where to direct it.

[on writing] One may lie to oneself, lie to the world, lie to God even, but to one's pen one cannot lie.

[on spirit] That is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great.

As one grows older, one cares less about clever writing and more about a simple and faithful presentation. But to reach this, one must have gone through the period where one dies, so to speak, for the fine phrase. That is essential to learning one's business.

[from a letter to Dorothy Canfield Fisher]] My familiar spirit is like an old, wild turkey that forsakes a feeding ground as soon as it sees tracks of people - especially if the people are readers, book-buyers. It's a crafty bird and it wants to go where there ain't no readers.

[from a letter to Stephen Tennant] Nearly all my books are made out of old experiences that have had time to season. Memory keeps what is essential and lets the rest go. I am always afraid of writing too much - of making stories that are like rooms full of things and people, with not enough air in them.