“I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty-everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?”

It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.

I believe in dreams. People should have faith in the songs poets sing.

English usage is sometimes more than mere taste, judgment and education – sometimes it’s sheer luck, like getting across the street.

When an American family becomes separated from its toothbrushes and combs and pajamas for a few hours it considers that it has had quite an adventure.

I don’t know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens.

In a man’s middle years there is scarcely a part of the body he would hesitate to turn over to the proper authorities.

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

I am often mad, but I would hate to be nothing but mad: and I think I would lose what little value I may have as a writer if I were to refuse, as a matter of principle, to accept the warming rays of the sun, and to report them, whenever, and if ever, they

It is quite possible that an animal has spoken to me and that I didn’t catch the remark because I wasn’t paying attention.

All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.

I have one share in corporate Earth, and I am nervous about the management.

Democracy is itself, a religious faith. For some it comes close to being the only formal religion they have.

Luck is not something you can mention in the presence of self-made men.

Reading is the work of the alert mind, is demanding, and under ideal conditions produces finally a sort of ecstasy.

Fern was up at daylight, trying to rid the world of injustice. As a result, she now has a pig. A small one to be sure, but nevertheless a pig. It just shows what can happen if a person gets out of bed promptly.

Understanding humor is like dissecting a live frog. It can be done, but the frog tends to die in the process.

I’m the most brutal and ruthless conquerer there has ever been.

The slowness of time, for a man who knows nothing will happen, is brutal.

Be brutal with the past, especially your own, and have no respect for the philosophies that are foisted on you from outside.

They were conquerors, and for that you want only brute force–nothing to boast of, when you have it, since your strength is just an accident arising from the weakness of others.

After healing I’ll run back to her – of course this poem demands a brutal ending!

A singular fact, that, when man is a brute, he is the most sensual and loathsome of all brutes.

Struggle is the father of all things. It is not by the principles of humanity that man lives or is able to preserve himself above the animal world, but solely by means of the most brutal struggle.

Brutality creates respect.