“She did her work with the thoroughness of a mind which reveres details and never quite understands them.”

You have more people that love you than you know.

One quarter are afraid to speak, and one quarter are killed and you die with them. But the blessed final quarter keep you alive.

Intellectually I know that America is no better than any other country.

As ever admit it; and I do believe that if we busted out and admitted it sometimes, instead of being nice and patient and loyal for sixty years, and then nice and patient and dead for the rest of eternity, why, maybe, possibly, we might make life more fun.

Life is hard and astonishingly complicated…. No one great reform will make it easy.

You’re so earnest about morality that I hate to think how essentially immoral you must be underneath.

I’ve heard of their curing syphilis by giving the patient malaria, but I’ve never heard of their curing malaria by giving the patient syphilis.

I love America, but I don’t like it.

Every compulsion is put upon writers to become safe, polite, obedient, and sterile.

He loved the people just as much as he feared and detested persons.

So much in a revolution is nothing but waiting.

Love is the one thing that can really sure-enough lighten all of life’s dark clouds.

We’re tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers… coax us, ‘Be calm! Be patient! Wait!

Is it possible that nobody has ever known that there never has been a completely civilized man, and won’t be for another thousand years?

My objection to the church isn’t that the preachers are cruel, hypocritical, actually wicked, though some of them are that, too .

We’d get sick on too many cookies, but ever so much sicker on no cookies at all.

Everybody is worried about dying, but the cause of death is birth, so if you don’t want to die, you don’t get born!

Writing has nothing to do with meaning. It has to do with landsurveying and cartography, including the mapping of countries yet to come.

Absorb a massive amount of detail and organize it in his mind.

I feel like the thing that I’ve learned a lot is when you’re involved in something, you don’t always get to appreciate it for what it is as much. You’re focused on the details and how you can make it better. It’s kind of torture.

The liberty of thinking and publishing whatsoever each one likes, without any hindrances, is not in itself an advantage over which society can wisely rejoice. On the contrary, it is the fountainhead and origin of many evils.

Never neglect details. When everyone’s mind is dulled or distracted the leader must be doubly vigilant.

Sometimes you don’t just want to risk making mistakes; you actually want to make them – if only to give you something clear and detailed to fix.

Today, Jesus stands ready to hear your cry and to answer prayer for you. He is interested in every detail of your life. He knows you better than you know yourself.