“To preserve my soul, I wrote late into the night hours.”

Night work framed as spiritual self-preservation · As commonly cited from his papers and later collections

• Soul
• Work
• Writing

“Let me drive out of myself the universal madness to be elsewhere in search of the joy of life, for the joy of life resides within oneself.”

Argues that contentment is an inner discipline, not a change of scene · Journal, on remaining in Terre Haute

• Contentment
• Joy
• Place

“I see there is a good deal of grandiloquence in my book—my friends and foes have told me. I think it must be true, for there is a good deal of grandiloquence in me—and in nature also: I saw a sunset last evening that was a gross imposition upon modesty.”

Defends a lofty style by pointing to nature’s own excess · Preface-like note in The Poems of Max Ehrmann

• Nature
• Style
• Writers