Key Quotations
A Century of Sonnets:
'The touchstone of my life was loyalty
To any task for which I volunteered.
I did not pledge to local royalty
But to the common good that I revered.
Those who employed me found an eager man,
Not limited to short eight-hour day,
Who kept his eye upon the master plan
And strove to edge it forward on its way.
I loved my school, my team, my Navy station,
My state, my country and the human race,
But most of all I loved my occupation:
The task of writing with insight and grace.
In time I learned the way to help my nation
Was to excel within my own vocation.'
The Fires of Spring:
'Writing is like that. Seeing what no one has ever seen before and writing it down so simply that everyone will say, ‘Of course! I knew that all along.’ If I can see, I can write...If I could see into the core of some one thing each day, say a horse eating oats, or a ferryboat, or the way a chair stands on the floor, I’d soon be so terribly filled with material that they couldn’t stop me from writing. Not even with machine guns...There’s no reason why I couldn’t write as well as Balzac.'
Mexico:
'But of Mexico as a unique land, with its own promise and its own problems, no one had written. And least of all the Mexicans themselves. For anyone in this land who took up his pen did so either as a Spanish apologist or as an Indian or as an anti-American or as a pro-Russian. But as a Mexican? Never.'
Tales of the South Pacific:
'I thought of Hoag as I knew him, a man who never buttoned his shirt properly. He was from Atlanta, but he championed the Negro. He was a rich man, but he befriended his meanest enlisted man. He was a gentile, but he placed Jews in position of command. He was a man tired with responsibility, but he saw to it that others got rest...Each man who lay on Hoga Point bore with him to his grave some promise for a free America. Now they were gone. Who would take their places? Women? Old men? Or were those who lived committed to a double burden?'
Texas:
'By the spring of 1845 the varied assignments given the self-taught surveyor, Ludwig Allerkamp, had enabled him to know more of Texas than most of its other citizens, and since he had an innate curiosity and a love of nature acquired from his ramblings in the woodlands of Germany, he perceived relationships which others did not. He saw, for example, that this central part of Texas consisted of five clearly defined strips, each a minor nation of its own...As Ludwig told his family when he returned from his assignment: 'It’s as if nature wanted to give a signal: ‘Here begins a new world.’ And she laid down this barrier of great rocks and hills.' He told them: 'Austin will become the most beautiful city in Texas because it lies right on the Balcones, land goes up and down, up and down.' Now the government assigned him the task of inspecting the fifth and most noble strip, those marvelous, quiet lands which lay to the west of the Balcones. With his two sons, Ernst, home from his service with the Rangers, and Emil, he set out to explore the very best part of Texas, the hill country.'
The World Is My Home:
'How can I possibly be what so many have called me, the incorrigible optimist? First, looking at the way in which good luck seemed determined to seek me out, with one scholarship after another, a series of good jobs plus a Pulitzer for my first book and a subsequent glorious Broadway musical, and with one best-seller after another, who should be optimistic if not I? Second, if I survived three major airplane crashes, revolutions and several major health problems, why would I not conclude that I was being kept alive in order to tackle some challenging job?...It seems that I was born to smile at the world, and such men do not write tragedies.'
