Criticism occupies the lowest place in the literary hierarchy: as regards form, almost always; and as regards moral value, incontestably. It comes after rhyming games and acrostics, which at least require a certain inventiveness.

The principal thing in this world is to keep one's soul aloft.

Style is as much under the words as in the words. It is as much the soul as it is the flesh of a work.

I detest my fellow-beings and do not feel that I am their fellow at all

What wretched poverty of language! To compare stars to diamonds!

Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

You forget everything. The hours slip by. You travel in your chair through centuries you seem seem to see before you, your thoughts are caught up in the story, dallying with the details or following the course of the plot, you enter into characters, so that it seems as if it were your own heart beating beneath their costumes.