Mr. Gilbert had the earnest mania for self-improvement which has blighted the lives of so many young men.
Truth is the ricochet of a prejudice bouncing off a fact.
How womanly it is to ask the unanswerable at the moment impossible.
There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way.
There are certain people whom one feels almost inclined to urge to hurry up and die so that their letters can be published.
When you sell a man a book you don't sell just twelve ounces of paper and ink and glue - you sell him a whole new life. Love and friendship and humour and ships at sea by night - there's all heaven and earth in a book, a real book.