There are two occasions when the sacred beauty of Creation becomes dazzlingly apparent, and they occur together. One is when we feel our mortal insufficiency to the world, and the other is when we feel the world’s mortal insufficiency to us.

You can know a thing to death and be for all purposes completely ignorant of it. A man can know his father, or his son, and there might still be nothing between them but loyalty and love and mutual incomprehension.

It is one of the best traits of good people that they love where they pity. And this is truer of women than of men. So they get themselves drawn into situations that are harmful to them. I have seen this happen many, many times. I have always had trouble finding a way to caution against it. Since it is, in a word, Christlike.

A little too much anger, too often or at the wrong time, can destroy more than you would ever imagine.

This is an interesting planet. It deserves all the attention you can give it.

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.

In my experience of it, age has a tendency to make one’s sense of oneself harder to maintain, less robust in some ways.

My reputation is largely the creature of the kindly imaginings of my flock, whom I chose not to disillusion, in part because the truth had the kind of pathos in it that would bring on sympathy in its least bearable forms.

I was always amazed, watching grownups, at the way they seemed to know what was to be done in any situation, to know what was the decent thing.