Pearl S. Buck

There are many ways of breaking a heart. Stories were full of hearts broken by love, but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream -- whatever that dream might be.

From that house there has come so much life that it ought never to die or fall into ruin... For me that house was a gateway to America.

She had always been too wise to tell him all she thought and felt, knowing by some intuition of her own womanhood that no man wants to know everything of any woman.

At my age the bones are water in the morning until food is given them.

When men destroy their old gods they will find new ones to take their place.

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.

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

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that.

Euthanasia is a long, smooth-sounding word, and it conceals its danger as long, smooth words do, but the danger is there, nevertheless.

Food for all is a necessity. Food should not be a merchandise, to be bought and sold as jewels are bought and sold by those who have the money to buy. Food is a human necessity, like water and air, it should be available.

On this earth, though far and near, without love, there's only fear.

None but the ignorant can be bored by life. To the lovers of learning, life is pure adventure shared with adventurers.

The mind that doggedly insists on prejudice often has not intelligence enough to change.

It is not healthy when a nation lives within a nation, as colored Americans are living inside America. A nation cannot live confident of its tomorrow if its refugees are among its own citizens.

I am comforted by life's stability, by earth's unchangeableness. What has seemed new and frightening assumes its place in the unfolding of knowledge. It is good to know our universe. What is new is only new to us.

Perhaps one has to be very old before one learns to be amused rather than shocked.

You are right,” he had said. “Love is not the word. No one can love his neighbor. Say, rather, ‘Know thy neighbor as thyself.” That is, comprehend his hardships and understand his position, deal with his faults as gently as with your own. Do not judge him where you do not judge yourself. Madame, this is the meaning of the word love.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

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

Men would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.

Men and women should own the world as a mutual possession.