To me [Edgar Allen Poe's] prose is unreadable—like Jane Austin's [sic]. No there is a difference. I could read his prose on salary, but not Jane's. Jane is entirely impossible. It seems a great pity that they allowed her to die a natural death.

The partitions of the houses were so thin we could hear the women occupants of adjoining rooms changing their minds.

Independence-is loyalty to one's best self and principles, and this is often disloyalty to the general idols and fetishes.

Don't look at the world with your hands in your pockets. To write about it you have to reach out and touch it.

One must travel, to learn.

The kingly office is entitled to no respect. It was originally procured by the highwayman's methods. It remains a perpetuated crime, can never be anything but the symbol of a crime. It is no more entitled to respect than is the flag of a pirate.

Books are the liberated spirits of men.