“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.”

“I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust.”

“There were times when I could not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands. I love a broad margin to my life.”

“When formerly I was looking about to see what I could do for a living... I thought often and seriously of picking huckleberries; that surely I could do.”

“If I put my head deliberately into the fire, there is no appeal to fire or to the maker of fire, and I have only myself to blame.”

“My life has been the poem I could have writBut I could not both live and utter it.”

“As the sun went down, I saw a solitary boatman disporting on the smooth lake. The falling dews seemed to strain and purify the air, and I was soothed with an infinite stillness. I got the world, as it were, by the nape of the neck, and held it under in the tide of its own events, till it was drowned, and then I let it go down stream like a dead dog. Vast hollow chambers of silence stretched away on every side, and my being expanded in proportion, and filled them. Then first could I appreciate sound, and find it musical.”