A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity.

Honest winter, snow clad and with the frosted beard, I can welcome not uncordially; but that long deferment of the calendar's promise, that weeping loom of March and April, that bitter blast outraging the honor of May - how often has it robbed me of heart and hope.

To like Keats is a test of fitness for understanding poetry, just as to like Shakespeare is a test of general mental capacity.

A pipe for the hour of work; a cigarette for the hour of conception; a cigar for the hour of vacuity.

And why should any man who writes, even if he writes things immortal, nurse anger at the world's neglect? Who asked him to publish? Who promised him a hearing? Who has broken faith with him? Your poem, your novel, who bargained with you for it?

It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched.

For one thing, I know every book of mine by its scent.