Objectivity and again objectivity, and expression: no hindside-before-ness, no straddled adjectives (as "addled mosses dank"), no Tennysonianness of speech; nothing-nothing that you couldn't, in some circumstance, in the stress of some emotion, actually say.

Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree.

What thou lov'st well is thy true heritage.

I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.

I would hold the rosy, slender fingers of the dawn for you.

Utter originality is, of course, out of the question.

Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear.