Pearl S. Buck

"I feel no need for any other faith than my faith in the kindness of human beings. I am so absorbed in the wonder of earth and the life upon it that I cannot think of heaven and angels."

"In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write."

"Inside myself is a place where I live all alone and that is where I renew my springs that never dry up."

"It may be that religion is dead, and if it is, we had better know it and set ourselves to try to discover other sources of moral strength before it is too late."

"Life without idealism is empty indeed. We just hope or starve to death."

"Love alone could waken love."

"Love dies only when growth stops."

"Nothing in life is as good as the marriage of true minds between man and woman. As good? It is life itself."

"Self-expression must pass into communication for its fulfillment."

"Some are kissing mothers and some are scolding mothers, but it is love just the same, and most mothers kiss and scold together."

"The basic discovery about any people is the discovery of the relationship between men and women."

"The bitterest creature under heaven is the wife who discovers that her husband's bravery is only bravado, that his strength is only a uniform, that his power is but a gun in the hands of a fool."

"The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration."

"The secret of joy in work is contained in one word - excellence. To know how to do something well is to enjoy it."

"The truth is always exciting. Speak it, then. Life is dull without it."

"To eat bread without hope is still slowly to starve to death."

"To find joy in work is to discover the fountain of youth."

"We should so provide for old age that it may have no urgent wants of this world to absorb it from meditation on the next. It is awful to see the lean hands of dotage making a coffer of the grave."