Never defend yourself; agree with your critics, it takes the wind out of their sails.

Truly Alice, books are wonderful things; to sit alone in a room and laugh and cry, because you are reading, and still be safe when you close the book; and having finished it, discover you are changed, yet unchanged! To be able to visit the City of Invention at will, depart at will – that is all, really, education is about, should be about.

Be bold, but not too bold. Have courage, but not too much.

I am not cynical. I am just old. I know what is going to happen next.

It is easier for the reader to judge, by a thousand times, than for the writer to invent. The writer must summon his Idea out of nowhere, and his characters out of nothing, and catch words as they fly, and nail them to the page. The reader has something to go by and somewhere to start from, given to him freely and with great generosity by the writer. And still the reader feels free to find fault.

Much sheer effort goes into avoiding the truth; left to itself, it sweeps in like the tide.

The peculiar need to write is increased, it seems, rather than allayed with practice.