Convince yourself that you are working in clay, not marble, on paper not eternal bronze: Let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes.

We may complain and cavil at the anarchy which is the amateurs natural element, but in soberness we must agree that if the amateur did not exist it would be necessary to invent him.

We cannot appreciate the art of any age without first acquiring an equivalent of the experience it depicts.

To denounce does not free the self from what it hates, any more than ignoring the past shuts off its influence.

Grab a pen and put down some words - your name even - and a title: something to see, to revise, to carve, to do over in the opposite way

The test and the use of man's education is that he finds pleasure in the exercise of his mind.

Speech, after all, is in some measure an expression of character, and flexibility in its use is a good way to tell your friends from the robots.