I ought to reflect again and again, and yet again, that the beings that I have to steer are just as inevitable in the scheme of evolution as I am myself; have just as much right to be themselves as I am entitled to; and they all deserve from me as much sympathy as I give to myself.

It is within the experience of everyone that when pleasure and pain reach a certain intensity they are indistinguishable.

Nearly all bookish people are snobs, and especially the more enlightened among them. They are apt to assume that if a writer has immense circulation, if he is enjoyed by plain persons, and if he can fill several theatres at once, he cannont possibly be worth reading and merits only indifference and disdain.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Every scene, even the commonest, is wonderful, if only one can detach oneself, casting off all memory of use and custom and behold it, as it were, for the first time.

The gain in self-confidence of having accomplished a tiresome labour is immense.

Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.