Hempfield: A Novel

“When you sell a man a book you don’t sell him just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue”

— David Grayson

“The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets.””

— David Grayson

“There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning. A man should be learning as he goes; and he should be earning bread for himself and others; and he should be yearning, too: yearning to know the unknowable.””

— David Grayson

“I think reading a good book makes one modest. When you see the marvelous insight into human nature which a truly great book shows, it is bound to make you feel small--like looking at the Big Dipper on a clear night, or seeing the winter sunrise when you go out to collect the morning eggs. And anything that makes you feel small is mighty good for you.””

— David Grayson

“Summer was over, and we were no longer young, but there were great things before us.””

— David Grayson

“A good book ought to have something simple about it. And, like Eve, it ought to come from somewhere near the third rib: there ought to be a heart beating in it. A story that's all forehead doesn't amount to much.””

— David Grayson

“What absurd victims of contrary desires we are! If a man is settled in one place he yearns to wander; when he wanders he yearns to have a home. And yet how bestial is content”

— David Grayson

“Calling us men doesn't make us men. No creature on earth has a right to think himself a human being if he doesn't know at least one good book.””

— David Grayson

“Oh, silly woman! Leave your stove, your pots and pans and chores, even if only for one day! Come out and see the sun in the sky and the river in the distance!””

— David Grayson