“At Harvard I learned most uncomfortably that facts are facts. In Italy I learned that facts are the way you look at them.”

“(the modern writer’s aim is) general revelation by suggestion (and) making a very tiny part do for a whole.”

“My final thought now is that as in religion and the arts, so in politics; if men do not balance their feelings and intelligence they lose command of both - and worse still, of their object.”

“...when I was young, I learned to feel for the harshness under every soft appearance.”

“But this upland pass was the right place for remembering how, when I was young, I learned to feel for the harshness underneath every soft appearance.”

“Let me just say that I am not often lonely in country places. In cities I am, like the writers of the letters. Nature doesn't break your heart: other people do. Yet, we cannot live apart from each other in bowers feeding on nectar. We're in this together, this getting through our lives, as the fact that we are word-users shows.”

“Then I traveled. Quite a bit, in fact. You have to stockpile a few beautiful vistas in your memory, Pearlie. In case we're rationed again.”