A sickness ... defines margins, crystallizes the shape of things.

But one had to go back to the beginning of things, always. Trace the thread of life - find the knot - untangle it.

The lush green of the fields became a rich gold that swayed sturdily under the wind and fell at last before the hands of the reapers.

it was a sly trick of God's to give a man work to do - it kept him from asking questions that God couldn't answer.

I don't see as it matters much how well you mean if it's harm you're doin'.

By mid-morning a rain as fine as silk spills was weaving over the lake.

A false vision was better than none.

Ah, life, life, how madly, how cruelly it raced along your pulses!

There was nothing so real on the prairie as winter, nothing so memorable.

There is too much doing - too little being! When we begin to get strenuous, life begins to grow intolerable.

Time, designing slowly, swiftly; Time, destroying slowly, swiftly; Time holding, possessing the earth in its tender indifference.

Our hearts belong together. And without yours, mine will stop beating.

Things don't turn up in this world until somebody turns them up.

Central to America's rise to global leadership is our Judeo-Christian tradition with the vision of the goodness and possibilities of every human life.

See Christians, Jews, one heavy sabbath keep, And all the western world believe and sleep.

Being from a divorced family almost felt like a scarlet letter at times. And I denied it for a long time.

When a man does all he can, though it succeeds not well, blame not him that did it.

The songs are all indexes of a time in the past when I was writing them.

Justice is incidental to law and order.

In my opinion, the greatest single failure of American education is that students come away unable to distinguish between a symbol and the thing the symbol stands for.

It is always the minorities that hold the key of progess; it is always through those who are unafraid to be different that advance comes to human society.