'Obviously I have not got through a long life without praising people - their houses, their gardens, their wives, their children, their political opinions, quite often their writing. But though I have liked a lot of people and loved a few, I have never been much good as telling them so, or telling them why. The more my admiration goes out to a man or woman personally, and not to some performance or accomplishment, the harder it is for me to express. The closer I come to fundamental values and beliefs, the closer I come to reticence. It is a more naked act for me to tell someone I am impressed by his principles and his integrity than to say I like his book or his necktie.'
Wallace Stegner, 'A Letter to Wendell Berry' in Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs, p.207.
