When one cannot appraise out of one's own experience, the temptation to blunder is minimized, but even when one can, appraisal seems chiefly useful as appraisal of the appraiser.

Omissions are not accidents.

A man is a writer if all his words are strung in definite sentence sounds.

There is no pleasure subtler than the sensation of being a good workman; and in work there is the sense of consanguinity-unconscious as a rule but sometimes conscious.

Poetry is the art of creating imaginary gardens with real toads.

Wolf's wool is the best of wool, / but it cannot be sheared because / the wolf will not comply.

Conscious writing can be the death of poetry.