For my own part, I have never had a thought which I could not set down in words, with even more distinctness than that with which I conceived it.

I have, indeed, no abhorrence of danger, except in its absolute effect - in terror.

There is not a more disgusting spectacle under the sun than our subserviency to British criticism. It is disgusting, first, because it is truckling, servile, pusillanimous--secondly, because of its gross irrationality. We know the British to bear us little but ill will--we know that, in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books . . . we know all this, and yet, day after day, submit our necks to the degrading yoke of the crudest opinion that emanates from the fatherland.

Perched upon a bust of Pallas, just above my chamber door,- Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.

Blood was its Avatar and its seal.

In the tale proper--where there is no space for development of character or for great profusion and variety of incident--mere construction is, of course, far more imperatively demanded than in the novel.