After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.
Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.
Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,In spider’s web a truth discerning,Attach one silken strand to youFor my returning.
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.
Writing is an act of faith, not a trick of grammar.
All that I hope to say in books, all that I ever hope to say, is that I love the world.
Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.
Life is like writing with a pen. You can cross out your past but you can’t erase it.
Why did you do all this for me?’ he asked. ‘I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.’ ‘You have been my friend,’ replied Charlotte. ‘That in itself is a tremendous thing.
It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer.
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?
You have been my friend… And that in itself is a tremendous thing.
They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side. If they’d hang head-down at the top of the thing and wait quietly, maybe something good would come along.
Explaining a joke is like dissecting a frog. You understand it better but the frog dies in the process.
I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
Tonight I heard Louis’s horn. My father heard it, too. The wind was right, and I could hear the notes of taps, just as darkness fell. There is nothing in all the world I like better than the trumpet of the swan.
I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. “Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.
Wilbur never forgot Charlotte. Although he loved her children and grandchildren dearly, none of the new spiders ever quite took her place in his heart.
The night seemed long. Wilbur’s stomach was empty and his mind was full. And when your stomach is empty and your mind is full, it’s always hard to sleep.
If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!” (William Strunk) … Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?
There is nothing so expensive, really, as a big, well-developed, full-bodied preconception.
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.
The rat had no morals, no conscience, no scruples, no consideration, no decency, no milk of rodent kindness, no compunctions, no higher feeling, no friendliness, no anything
As everyone knows, there is often a rather fine line between laughing and crying
The world is full of talkers, but it is rare to find anyone who listens. And I assure you that you can pick up more information when you are listening than when you are talking.
Hope is the thing that is left to us, in a bad time.
To confront death, in any guise, is to identify with the victim and face what is unsettling and sobering
To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. “The Distant Music of the Hounds,” 1954
I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.
By comparison with other less hectic days, the city is uncomfortable and inconvenient; but New Yorkers temperamentally do not crave comfort and convenience- if they did they would live elsewhere.
It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
At this season of the year, darkness is a more insistent thing than cold. The days are short as any dream.
Walden is the report of a man torn by two powerful and opposing drives – the desire to enjoy the world and the urge to set the world straight.
It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.
Early summer days are a jubilee time for birds. In the fields, around the house, in the barn, in the woods, in the swamp – everywhere love and songs and nests and eggs.
new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.
The city is like poetry; it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines.
New York is to the nation what the white church spire is to the village – the visible symbol of aspiration and faith, the white plume saying the way is up
I’m really too young to go out into the world alone,” he thought as he lay down
I’m really too young to go out into the world alone,” he thought as he lay down.
Besides, my life is a catastrophe. It’s a catastrophe to be without a voice.
The critic leaves at curtain fall To find, in starting to review it, He scarcely saw the play at all For starting to review it.