People never want to be told anything they do not believe already.

Sad hours and glad hours, and all hours, pass over; One thing unshaken stays: Life, that hath Death for spouse, hath Chance for lover; Whereby decays, Each thing save one thing: mid this strife diurnal, Of hourly change begot, Love that is God-born, bides as God eternal, And changes not; Nor means a tinseled dream pursuing lovers, Find altered by-and-bye, When, with possession, time anon discovers, Trapped dreams must die, - For he that visions God, of mankind gathers, One manlike trait alone, And reverently imputes to Him a father's love for his son.

People must have both their dreams and their dinners in this world, and when we go out of it we must take what we find. That is all.

I ask of literature precisely those things of which I feel the lack in my own life.

The desire to write perfectly of beautiful happenings is, as the saying runs, old as the hills — and as immortal.

There is no escaping, at times, the gloomy suspicion that fiddling with pens and ink is, after all, no fit employment for a grown man.

There is not any memory with less satisfaction than the memory of some temptation we resisted.