Housework is a breeze. Cooking is a pleasant diversion. Putting up a retaining wall is a lark. But teaching is like climbing a mountain.

"Show me a character whose life arouses my curiosity, and my flesh begins crawling with suspense."

"There is, of course, a gold mine or a buried treasure on every mortgaged homestead. Whether the farmer ever digs for it or not, it is there, haunting his daydreams when the burden of debt is most unbearable."

"A man's memory is bound to be a distortion of his past in accordance with his present interests, and the most faithful autobiography is likely to mirror less what a man was than what he has become."

"A passion for politics stems usually from an insatiable need, either for power, or for friendship and adulation, or a combination of both."