Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.

The only just literary critic," he concluded, "is Christ, who admires more than does any man the gifts He Himself has bestowed.

Trolls simply detest the very sight of dwarves (uncooked).

Criticism - however valid or intellectually engaging - tends to get in the way of a writer who has anything personal to say. A tightrope walker may require practice, but if he starts a theory of equilibrium he will lose grace (and probably fall off).

It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule.

If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.