“Ideals are the world's masters.”

“Nature is the master of talents genius is the master of nature. ”

“Joys divided are increased.”

“God gives every bird its food, but He does not throw it into its nest.”

“Scholarship except by accident is never the measure of a person's power.”

“Artists are nearest God. Into their souls he breathes his life and from their hands it comes in fair articulate forms to bless the world.”

“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.”

“All words are pegs to hang ideas on.”

“A word is not the same with one writer as it is with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.”

“No doubt I shall go on writing, stumbling across tundras of unmeaning, planting words like bloody flags in my wake....”