How few writers can prostitute all their powers!

The people I respect most behave as if they were immortal and as if society was eternal.

Romance only dies with life. No pair of pincers will ever pull it out of us. But there is a spurious sentiment which cannot resist the unexpected and the incongruous and the grotesque. A touch will loosen it, and the sooner it goes from us the better.

A critic has no right to the narrowness which is the frequent prerogative of the creative artist.

It is impossible to foretell the future with any degree of accuracy, that it is impossible to rehearse life. A fault in the scenery, a face in the audience, an interruption of the audience on to the stage, and all our carefully planned gesture mean nothing, or mean too much.

One is certain of nothing but the truth of one's own emotions.

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.