Of comic novels that have quaffed the elixir of 'classic': Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm.

It isn't the instrument that influences High-Minded or Low-Minded; it's the quality of Mind itself.

To listen acutely is to be powerless, even if you sit on a throne.

I can't claim to be disenchanted "with the current state of fiction" because I read so little of it. My reading is mostly drawn to history.

One reason writers write is out of revenge. Life hurts; certain ideas and experiences hurt; one wants to clarify, to set out illuminations, to replay the old bad scenes and get the Treppenworte said -- the words one didn't have the strength or ripeness to say when those words were necessary for one's dignity or survival.

If we had to say what writing is, we would have to define it essentially as an act of courage.

The imagination is a species of knowledge, knowledge that can take the form of discovery.