It is deeply satisfying to win a prize in front of a lot of people.

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.

I see nothing in space as promising as the view from a Ferris wheel.

I am pessimistic about the human race because it is too ingenious for its own good. Our approach to nature is to beat it into submission. We would stand a better chance of survival if...

This is what youth must figure out:Girls, love, and living.The having, the not having,The spending and giving,And the meloncholy time of not knowing.This is what age must learn about:The ABC of dying.The going, yet not...

…Surely the Board knows what democracy is. It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in don’t shove. It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust...

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.

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.

I am reminded of the advice of my neighbor. “Never worry about your heart till it stops beating.

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

I’m really too young to go out into the world alone,” he thought as he lay down

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

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.

Summertime, oh, summertime, pattern of life indelible, the fade-proof lake, the woods unshatterable, the pasture with the sweetfern and the juniper forever and ever . . . the cottages with their innocent and tranquil design,...

Writing is both mask and unveiling.

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,...

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

new york provides not only a continuing excitation but also a spectacle that is continuing.

If you don’t know how to pronounce a word, say it loud!” (William Strunk) … Why compound ignorance with inaudibility?

The mind travels faster than the pen; consequently, writing becomes a question of learning to make occasional wing shots, bringing down the bird of thought as it flashes by. A writer is a gunner, sometimes...

Swamps where cedars grow and turtles wait on logs but not for anything in particular; fields bordered by crooked fences broken by years of standing still; orchards so old they have forgotten where the farmhouse...

A library is a good place to go when you feel unhappy, for there, in a book, you may find encouragement and comfort. A library is a good place to go when you feel bewildered...

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.

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.

The best writing is rewriting.

The first day of spring was once the time for taking the young virgins into the fields, there in dalliance to set an example in fertility for nature to follow. Now we just set the...

…all his thoughts were of how lucky he was to inhabit such a beautiful earth, how lucky he had been to solve his problems with music, and how pleasant it was to look forward to...

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

The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year – the days when summer is changing into autumn...

Anyone who writes down to children is simply wasting his time. You have to write up, not down. Children are demanding. They are the most attentive, curious, eager, observant, sensitive, quick, and generally congenial readers...

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.

Safety is all well and good: I prefer freedom.

New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the...

If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and...

A schoolchild should be taught grammar–for the same reason that a medical student should study anatomy. Having learned about the exciting mysteries of an English sentence, the child can then go forth and speak and...

Remember that writing is translation, and the opus to be translated is yourself.

It was a delicious meal — skim milk, wheat middlings, leftover pancakes, half a doughnut, the rind of a summer squash, two pieces of stale toast, a third of a gingersnap, a fish tail, one...

Just the minute another person is drawn into some one’s life, there begin to arise undreamed-of complexities, and from such a simple beginning as sexual desire we find built up such alarming yet familiar phenomena...

Trust me, Wilbur. People are very gullible. They’ll believe anything they see in print.

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

There is nothing harder to estimate than a writer’s time, nothing harder to keep track of. There are moments—moments of sustained creation—when his time is fairly valuable; and there are hours and hours when a...

To perceive Christmas through its wrapping becomes more difficult with every year. “The Distant Music of the Hounds,” 1954

I have seldom met an individual of literary tastes or propensities in whom the writing of love was not directly attributable to the love of writing.A person of this sort falls terribly in love, but...

After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die.

Don’t write about Man; write about a man.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,In spider’s web a truth discerning,Attach one silken strand to youFor my returning.