“For this reason, it is well said that misfortune is sometimes good for something, for it teaches at the same time that it hurts.”

“Speak gently but look out for your rights.”

“What do you care if people talk? Those who talk cannot harm you. Why should you be worried? You should only think about those things that please you. You have only one life in this world: soon you'...”

“I do not consider my deeds or my knowledge to be a great thing. The only fact is and I can say this honestly that I love learning and a solitary life.”

“... one could find plenty of intelligent women in the world if one were willing to look.”

“...the values ascribed to the Indian will depend on what the white writer feels about Nature, and America has always had mixed feelings about that. At one end of the spectrum is Thoreau, wishing to...”

“Literature is news which stays news.”

“If you show someone something you've written, you give them a sharpened stake, lie down in your coffin, and say, When youre ready.”

“Sometimes two people have to fall apart, to realize how much they need to fall back together.”

“Good literature is one key to peace. When we stop reading each other, when we stop paying attention to each other's words and stories, we too easily oppose one another.”

“There is only one motive for writing a novel: to be published and read. To me there is no distinction between the mystery novel and the novel, only between good books and bad books. A good book tak...”

“Human communication and literature are all made of words; thus, its hard to overestimate their unbelievable power.”

“Poetry is not a mere expression of a poet's self, but an enchantment, a spell of the muse, the inspiration. Poetry is thus magic and magic is poetry.”

“We're not made to wallow in pleasure. Pleasure is joy's assassin.”