Propaganda has a bad name, but its root meaning is simply to disseminate through a medium, and all writing therefore is propaganda for something. It's a seeding of the self in the consciousness of others.

It takes two to write a letter as much as it takes two to make a quarrel.

The pain of loss, moreover, however agonizing, however haunting in memory, quiets imperceptibly into acceptance as the currents of active living and of fresh emotions flow over it.

How frail and ephemeral is the material substance of letters, which makes their very survival so hazardous. Print has a permanence of its own, though it may not be much worth preserving, but a letter! Conveyed by uncertain transportation, over which the sender has no control; committed to a single individual who may be careless or inappreciative; left to the mercy of future generations, of families maybe anxious to suppress the past, of the accidents of removals and house-cleanings, or of mere ignorance. How often it has been by the veriest chance that they have survived at all.

Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust itsvitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it.

[On newspapers:] A first draft of history.