the slight sense of degeneracy induced by reading novels before luncheon

The silence of a shut park does not sound like country silence: it is tense and confined.

the process of reading is reciprocal; the book is no more than a formula, to be furnished out with images out of the reader's mind.

The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written.

The short story is at an advantage over the novel, and can claim its nearer kinship to poetry, because it must be more concentrated, can be more visionary, and is not weighed down (as the novel is bound to be) by facts, explanation, or analysis. I do not mean to say that the short story is by any means exempt from the laws of narrative: it must observe them, but on its own terms.

Nothing can happen nowhere. The locale of the happening always colours the happening, and often, to a degree, shapes it.

Mechanical difficulties with language are the outcome of internal difficulties with thought.