“The road to wisdom is paved with excess. The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and familiarize the strange.”

“The ability of writers to imagine what is not the self, to familiarize the strange and mystify the familiar, is the test of their power.”

“I see the cliffs, glaciers, torrents, valleys of Switzerland - I mark the long winters and the isolation.”

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.”

“...the memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment, and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.”

“storming, enjoying, planning, loving, cautioning,Backing and filling, appearing and disappearing,I tread day and night such roads.”

“Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream.”