What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?

The great art of writing is the art of making people real to themselves with words.

When elderly invalids meet with fellow-victims of their own ailments, then at last real conversation begins, and life is delicious.

But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the Negro and star-enameled Night?

People before the public live an imagined life in the thought of others, and flourish or feel faint as their self outside themselves grows bright or dwindles in that mirror.

Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each others fur.

The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.