“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

“Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.”

“How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmaresif there seemed any danger of their coming true!”

“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.”

“What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.”

“The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood.”

“To create art with all the passion in one's soul is to live art with all the beauty in one's heart.”

“art is risk made visible”

“Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.”

“The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great...”

“What we do see depends mainly on what we look for. ... In the same field the farmer will notice the crop, the geologists the fossils, botanists the flowers, artists the colouring, sportmen the cove...”

“What we get when we turn pro is we find our power. We find our will and our voice and we find our self-respect. We become who we always were but had, until then, been afraid to embrace and live out.”