My failure, during the first five or six years of my art training, to get set in the right direction, and the disappointment which it caused me, drove me the more persistently into writing as an alternative.

Prosecution I have managed to avoid; but I have been arrested, charged in a police court, have refused to be bound over, and thereupon have been unconditionally released - to my great regret; for I have always wanted to know what going to prison was like.

It is right and natural that generous minds while in the twenties should think the books which try to reform the world's wrong the greatest of all.

I still think that if the human race, or even one nation, could only get right about its God the rest would follow.

I have always been a writer of letters, and of long ones; so, when I first thought of writing a book in the form of letters, I knew that I could do it quickly and easily.

I had never thought of myself as a dramatist, and, for really good technical results, the thought came too late: a man of letters has become too wordy to write economically for the stage.

For the last half of my life I have had the doubtful benefit of a brother whose literary reputation is much greater than my own.