A writer of story books! What kind of business in life-what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation-may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!
Nathaniel HawthorneLet men tremble to win the hand of woman, unless they win along with it the utmost passion of her heart!
Nathaniel HawthorneThe book, if you would see anything in it, requires to be read in the clear, brown, twilight atmosphere in which it was written; if opened in the sunshine, it is apt to look exceedingly like a volume of blank pages.
Nathaniel HawthorneOf all the events which constitute a person's biography, there is scarcely one ... to which the world so easily reconciles itself as to his death.
Nathaniel HawthorneThe only sensible ends of literature are, first, the pleasurable toil of writing; second, the gratification of one's family and friends; and lastly, the solid cash.
Nathaniel HawthorneSee! those fiendish lineaments graven on the darkness, the writhed lip of scorn, the mockery of that living eye, the pointed finger, touching the sore place in your heart! Do you remember any act of enormous folly, at which you would blush, even in the remotest cavern of the earth? Then recognize your Shame.
Nathaniel Hawthorne