Why, after all, should readers never be harrowed? Surely there is enough happiness in life without having to go to books for it.

His books are exciting and powerful and — if I may filch the word from the booksy ones — pulsing.

There must be a magnificent disregard of your reader, for if he cannot follow you, there is nothing you can do about it.

[On Lou Tellegen's Women Have Been Kind:] The book ... has all the elegance of a quirked little finger and all the glitter of a pair of new rubbers.

Gratitude - the meanest and most snivelling attribute in the world.

In the pathway of the sun, In the footsteps of the breeze, Where the world and sky are one, He shall ride the silver seas, He shall cut the glittering wave. I shall sit at home, and rock; Rise, to heed a neighbor's knock; Brew my tea, and snip my thread; Bleach the linen for my bed. They will call him brave.

Never throw mud: you can miss the target, but your hands will remain dirty.