“Clay is earth with humility.”

“Kingdoms are clay: our dungy earth alikeFeeds beast as man.”

“It is a wholesome and necessary thing for us to turn again to the earth and in the contemplation of her beauties to know the sense of wonder and humility. ”

“People talk about medium. What is your medium? My medium as a writer has been dirt, clay, sand--what I could touch, hold, stand on, and stand for--Earth. My medium has been Earth. Earth in correspondence with my mind.”

“The whole earth is the tomb of heroic men and their story is not given only on stone over their clay but abides everywhere without visible symbol woven into the stuff of other mens lives.”

“Shadow! or Spirit!Whatever thou art,Which still doth inheritThe whole or a partOf the form of thy birth,Of the mould of thy clay,Which returned to the earth,Re-appear to the day!”