Faith builds in the dungeon and lazarhouse its sublimest shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--prayer.

How many of us have been attracted to reason; first learned to think, to draw conclusions, to extract a moral from the follies of life, by some dazzling aphorism.

The conscience is the most flexible material in the world. Today you cannot stretch it over a mole hill; while tomorrow it can hide a mountain.

He who writes prose builds his temple to Fame in rubble; he who writes verses builds it in granite.

Genius is but fine observation strengthened by fixity of purpose.

Men are valued, not for what they are, but for what they seem to be.

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh. Take in the ideas of the day, drain off those of yesterday.

A good cigar is as great a comfort to a man as a good cry to a woman.

Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes.

Love has no thought of self! Love buys not with the ruthless usurer's gold The loathsome prostitution of a hand Without a heart! Love sacrifices all things To bless the thing it loves!

A fresh mind keeps the body fresh.

This world is your world but that doesn't mean you can always stop it from burning.

My Turn is the distilled bathwater of Mrs. Reagan's life. It is for the most part sweetish, with a tart edge of rebuke, but disappointingly free of dirt or particulate matter of any kind.

I don't know if anything in nature ever grows exactly the same, but they are always exactly as the way it should be, perfectly itself.

I miss the grasshoppers much, but suppose it is all for the best. I should become too much attached to a trotting world.

The crows maintain that a single crow could destroy the heavens. There is no doubt of that, but it proves nothing against the heavens, for heaven simply means: the impossibility of crows.

So long as man remains no real threat to the Enemy, Satan's line to him is 'You're fine'. But after you do take sides, it becomes 'Your heart is bad and you know it'.

Could words and symbols wield such power? Could mere scribblings on parchment unmake a person's moral fiber? Weren't we made of sterner stuff?

I need to keep reinventing myself.

People say you cant teach writing, but I think thats nonsense.