Doctors always think anybody doing something they aren't is a quack; also they think all patients are idiots.

The writer should never be ashamed of staring. There is nothing that does not require his attention.

I love a lot of people, understand none of them.

The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of the past, to come, in time, to an understanding of the best writing of the present. He will teach literature, not social studies or little lessons in democracy or the customs of many lands. And if the student finds that this is not to his taste? Well, that is regrettable. Most regrettable. His taste should not be consulted; it is being formed.

I write any sort of rubbish which will cover the main outlines of the story, then I can begin to see it.

A gift of any kind is a considerable responsibility. It is a mystery in itself, something gratuitous and wholly undeserved, something whose real uses will probably always be hidden from us.

The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.