"The creator, the artist, the extraordinary man, is merely the ordinary man intensified: a person whose life is sometimes lifted to a high pitch of feeling and who has the gift of making others share his excitement." page 1, Chapter 1

"Longfellow... in "My Lost Youth" wrote, 'A boy's will is the wind's will, and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'" page 8, Chapter 1

"... why abandon a belief / Merely because it ceases to be true[?] / Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt / It will turn true again, for so it goes. / Most of the change we think we see in life / Is due to truths being in and out of favor." page 13, Chapter 1

"He accepts the world's contradictions without being crushed by them.... 'And were an epitaph to be my story / I'd have a short one ready for my own. / I would have written of me...