The winter will be long and bleak. Nature has a dismal aspect.

Our years, our debts, and our enemies are always more numerous than we imagine.

Such days of autumnal decline hold a strange mystery which adds to the gravity of all our moods.

But if what interests you are stories of the fantastic, I must warn you that this kind of story demands more art and judgment than is ordinarily imagined.

Literature is the expression of society.

If you are alone, tell some stories to yourself. This is a different kind of pleasure and it has, indeed, its reward. I have tasted a little of everything, and I have truly never enjoyed anything more.

The winter will be long and bleak. Nature has a dismal aspect.