"I believe humility is a virtue, but I prefer not to use it unless it is absolutely necessary."
—Brooklyn Eagle, January 11, 1916
"I am not a perfect being. . . . I have more faults than I know what to do with. I have a naughty temper. I am stubborn, impatient of hindrances and of stupidity. I have not in the truest sense a Christian spirit. I am naturally a fighter. I am lazy. I put off till tomorrow what I might better do today. I do not feel that I have been compensated for the two senses I lack. I have worked hard for all the senses I have got, and always I beg for more."
—"A Message from the Hand, or from Darkness to Light (Another Beginning)," draft of speech, 1928
"I am younger today than I was at twenty-five. Of course the furrows of suffering have been dug deeper, but so have those of understanding sympathy and inner happiness. Whatever age may do to my earthly shell, I shall never grow cynical or indifferent—and one cannot measure the reserve power locked up in that assurance."
—Letter to Clare Heineman, July 19, 1943
"What a strange life I lead— a kind of Cinderella-life—half glitter in crystal shoes, half mice and cinders! But it is a wonderful life all the same."
—Letter to Mrs. Felix [Carrie] Fuld, ca. 1933
