“A story is like something you wind out of yourself. Like a spider, it is a web you weave, and you love your story like a child.”

“Don't you love being alive?" asked Miranda. "Don't you love weather and the colors at different times of the day, and all the sounds and noises like children screaming in the next lot, and automobile horns and little bands playing in the street and the smell of food cooking?""I love to swim, too." said Adam."So do I," said Miranda, "we never did swim together.”

“Now I must get up and go while they are all quiet. Where are my things? Things have a will of their own in this place and hide where they like. Daylight will strike a sudden blow on the roof startling them all up to their feet; faces will beam asking, Where are you going, What are you doing, What are you thinking, How do you feel, Why do you say such things, What do you mean? No more sleep. Where are are my boots and what horse shall I ride? Fiddler or Graylie or Miss Lucy with the long nose and the wicked eye? How I have loved this house in the morning before we are all awake and tangled together like badly cast fishing lines.”

“[From Old Mortality]The woman in the picture. . . was only a ghost in a frame, and a sad, pretty story from old times.”

“Trust your happiness and the richness of your life at this moment. It is as true and as much yours as anything else that ever happened to you.”

“The past is never where you think you left it.”

“You waste life when you waste good food.”