As far back as I remember, long before I could write, I had played at making stories. But not until I was seven or more, did I begin to pray every night, "O God, let me write books! Please, God, let me write books!"

To seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only touch with reality.

Pessimism is the affectation of youth, the reality of age.

The world of the egotist is, inevitably, a narrow world, and the boundaries of self are limited to the close horizon of personality.... But, within this horizon, there is room for many attributes that are excellent.

Passion alone could destroy passion. All the thinking in the world could not make so much as a dent in its surface.

Mediocrity would always win by force of numbers, but it would win only more mediocrity.

I have watchedmany literary fashions shoot up and blossom, and then fade and drop.... Yet with the many that I have seen comeand go, I have never yet encountered a mode of thinking that regarded itself as simply a changing fashion, and not as an infallible approach to the right culture.