There is nothing in nature quite so joyful as the very young and silly lamb - odd that it should develop into that dull and sober animal the sheep.

Country things are the necessary root of our life - and that remains true even of a rootless and tragically urban civilization. To live permanently away from the country is a form of slow death.

Books, to the reading child, are so much more than books-they are dreams and knowledge, they are a future, and a past.

It is only after a fair portion of one's life that one really knows what are the things that matter, the things that will remain until the end.

Always, our eyes look backwards with the conviction that then, and not now, was the golden age.

A garden has a curious innocent way of consuming cash while all the time you are under the illusion that you are spending nothing.

A horse, if he happens to have a contemptuous disposition, can sneer very effectively.

It is so often the odd, the unexpected, the apparently trifling, that stamps itself upon the memory for ever, while much more memorable things pass away like a breath of wind.

Youthful days are longer than those of later years, as we all learn as we grow older.

Life is delicious. Waste not one bite!

Solitude is for me a fount of healing which makes my life worth living. Talking is often a torment for me, and I need many days of silence to recover from the futility of words.

No marriage is "too dead" for the Lord to restore.

I feel like really thinking about art and really appreciating it and learning the language of it just makes you more of a connoisseur. I believe that.

This kind of painting with its large frames is a bourgeois drawing-room art. It is an art dealer's art-and that came in after the civil wars following the French Revolution.

A socialist is somebody who doesn't have anything, and is ready to divide it up equally among everybody.

It is ridiculous ever to forget that you and your business are each implanted in the society of the moment. We cannot ignore the world of our time. We had better understand it.

We children learned responsibility automatically.

Nothing could be more personal than a tape.

It would leave no room for developments and I intend to develop in many directions.