Art, at any rate in a novel, must be indissolubly linked with craft.

Illusions are art, for the feeling person, and it is by art that we live, if we do.

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.

People in love, in whom every sense is open, cannot beat off the influence of a place.

I am dead against art's being self-expression. I see an inherent failure in any story which fails to detach itself from the author-detach itself in the sense that a well-blown soap-bubble detaches itself from the bowl of the blower's pipe and spherically takes off into the air as a new, whole, pure, iridescent world. Whereas the ill-blown bubble, as children know, timidly adheres to the bowl's lip, then either bursts or sinks flatly back again.

Never to lie is to have no lock on your door, you are never wholly alone.

There is no end to the violations committed by children on children, quietly talking alone.