“Obedience is the gateway through which knowledge enters the mind of the child.”

“I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.”

“People seldom see the halting and painful steps by which the most insignificant success is achieved. ”

“Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.”

“Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitation touches at many points the life of the World Beautiful? Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be, therein to be content.”

“Too often, I think, children are required to write before they have anything to say. Teach them to think and read and talk with self-repression, and they will write because they cannot help it.”

“Sam Spade is as gray as the economic skies over America and moves through the story as cool and slick as a Teflon cat.”