“Well,” said Stuart, “a misspelled word is an abomination in the sight of everyone.”

Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.

You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway?

You’re terrific as far as I am concerned.

A poet dares be just so clear and no clearer… He unzips the veil from beauty, but does not remove it. A poet utterly clear is a trifle glaring.

Only a person who is congenially self-centered has the effrontery and the stamina to write essays

It is Sunday, mid-morning-Sunday in the living room, Sunday in the kitchen, Sunday in the woodshed, Sunday down the road in the village: I hear the bells, calling me to share God’s grace.

Habitually creative people are prepared to be lucky.

Salutations; it’s just my fancy way of saying hello or good morning

Nationalism has two fatal charms for its devotees: It presupposes local self-sufficiency, which is a pleasant and desirable condition, and it suggests, very subtly, a certain personal superiority by reason of one’s belonging to a place which is definable and familiar, as against a place that is strange, remote.

Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.

Most people think of peace as a state of Nothing Bad Happening, or Nothing Much Happening. Yet if peace is to overtake us and make us the gift of serenity and well-being, it will have to be the state of Something Good Happening.

Be obscure clearly! Be wild of tongue in a way we can understand.

I am still encouraged to go on. I wouldn’t know where else to go.

When you say something, make sure you have said it. The chances of your having said it are only fair.

A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word to paper.

Semi-colons only prove that the author has been to college.

A lie is an abomination unto the Lord, and a very present help in trouble.