Enough had been thought, and said, and felt, and imagined. It was about time that something should be done.

The mark of Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all.

Let there be wicked kings and beheadings, battles and dungeons, giants and dragons, and let the villans be soundly killed at the end of the book. I think it is possible that by confining your child to the blameless stories of life in which nothing at all alarming ever happens, you would fail to banish the terrors, and would succeed in banishing all that can ennoble them or make them endurable.

The human mind is generally far more eager to praise and dispraise than to describe and define. It wants to make every distinction a distinction of value; hence those fatal critics who can never point out the differing quality of two poets without putting them in an order of preference as if they were candidates for a prize.

If you simply try to tell the truth you will, nine times out of ten, be original without ever having noticed it.

It is a good rule after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in between.

Some people write heavily, some write lightly. I prefer the light approach because I believe there is a great deal of false reverence about. There is too much solemnity and intensity in dealing with sacred matters; too much speaking in holy tones.