Even when the east excited me most, even when I was keenly aware of its superiority to the broad, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which only spared children and the very old-even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.

And could she love where she feared?

I was halfway across America, at the dividing line between the East of my youth and the West of my future.

I was a battleground of fear and curiosity.

I realized that Eastern thought had somewhat more compassion for all living things. Man was a form of life that in another reincarnation might possibly be a horsefly or a bird of paradise or a deer. So a man of such a faith, looking at animals, might be looking at old friends or ancestors. In the East the wilderness has no evil connotation; it is thought of as an expression of the unity and harmony of the universe.

Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere.

I was brought up to hate and fear liberty. I came to love it. That is the secret of my whole career.

There was always scope for fear,so long as anything I love remained behind

I have always felt that doubt was the beginning of wisdom, and the fear of God was the end of wisdom.

I came to expect despair every time I set foot in my own country, and I was never disappointed.

Desire urges me on, while fear bridals me.

Love and worry. They went hand in hand. Fellow travelers.

Then, by dint of seeing the days born in the morning and miscarrying in the evening, I became afraid to die, and this fear was my first passion.

Looking back I see that I was always afraid of something: of the dark, of displeasing people, of failure. Anything I accomplished had to be done across a barrier of fear. ELEANOR ROOSEVELT