The roaring of the wind is my wife and the stars through the window pane are my children. The mighty abstract idea I have of beauty in all things stifles the more divided and minute domestic happiness.

As the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

'The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.'

All I am, or can be, I owe to my angel mother.

'Daddy, how many whoppers are there in those tall trees?' After waking up in the car while driving through Calaveras Big Trees and hearing daddy say, 'Wow, that's a whopper of a tree.'