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

“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”

“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.”

“All our focus and strength must be concentrated on striving to fulfill the will of God for our lives”

“Nothing, save the hangman's noose, concentrates the mind like piles of cash.”

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”