The value of books is proportionate to what may be called their plasticity -- their quality of being all things to all men, of being diversely moulded by the impact of fresh forms of thought.

Her vivid smile was like a light held up to dazzle me.

Wherein lies a poet's claim to originality? That he invents his incidents? No. That he was present when his episodes had their birth? No. That he was first to repeat them? No. None of these things has any value. He confers on them their only originality that has any value, and that is his way of telling them." Mark Twain "...every literature, in its main lines, reflects the chief characteristics of the people for whom, and about whom, it is written.

Everybody who does anything at all does too much.

And you'll sit beside me, and we'll look, not at visions, but at realities.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

The desire for symmetry, for balance, for rhythm in form as well as in sound, is one of the most inveterate of human instincts.