I am a Jane Austenite, and therefore slightly imbecile about Jane Austen. My fatuous expression, and airs of personal immunity-how ill they sit on the face, say,of a Stevensonian! But Jane Austen is so different. She is my favourite author! I read and reread, the mouth open and the mind closed. Shut up in measureless content, I greet her by the name of most kind hostess, while criticism slumbers.

Give, do not lend; after death who will thank you?

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

I do not believe in Belief.

A poem is true if it hangs together. Information points to something else. A poem points to nothing but itself.

What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote.

Lord I disbelieve - help thou my unbelief.