“Writing is one of the loneliest of the arts; unlike the actor we have no immediate audience and must wait many long months, even years on occasion, for the splatter of applause to reach our ears, if indeed we are not damned by total neglect.”

“To want something desperately, to be tested, to feel that life will be impossible if the object of one's desires is not achieved, is always dangerous for the soul. Some people attempt to climb Everest because, as they say, it is there; others want nothing but wealth and care little how or where they collect it; others still, with less avaricious tastes - perhaps desiring nothing more than freedom from fear - are blinded by the same personal sun that shines on all human ambition. At some time or another it burns most of us.”

“To live long and achieve happiness, cultivate the art of radiating happiness.”

“Jesus designed the Lord's prayer to reveal His desire to give us more fully, graciously, and suitably the very things we most want but seek elsewhere. He does not want to deny us our desires but helps remove the false objects of our affections so that we will have the greater blessings he longs to lavish on us.”

“We give all we have, lives, property, safety, skill...we fight, we die, for a simple thing. Only that a man can stand up.”

“Religion is, in reality, living. Our religion is not what we profess, or what we say, or what we proclaim; our religion is what we do, what we desire, what we seek, what we dream about, what we fantasize, what we think - all these things - twenty-four hours a day. One's religion, then, is ones life, not merely the ideal life but the life as it is actually lived. Religion is not prayer, it is not a church, it is not theistic, it is not atheistic, it has little to do with what white people call "religion." It is our every act. If we tromp on a bug, that is our religion; if we experiment on living animals, that is our religion; if we cheat at cards, that is our religion; if we dream of being famous, that is our religion; if we gossip maliciously, that is our religion; if we are rude and aggressive, that is our religion. All that we do, and are, is our religion.”

“The man who has done his level best…is a success, even though the world write him down a failure.”