It is a racking thing to have a plague of ideas and no chance to get rid of them on paper. I've nearly gone mad at times.

California ... produces the maximum of scenery and the minimum of weather.

there's no art but has some business to it and no business but some art.

Perhaps after all the most breathtaking quality about San Francisco is these unexpected glimpses that you are always getting of beautiful hill-heights and beautiful valley-depths. ... City lights, like nests of diamonds, glitter and glisten in the depths of those valleys.

there are no old people in California. Nobody ever gets a chance to grow old there. The climate won't let you. The scenery won't let you. The life won't let you.