artists are exposed to great temptations: their eyes see paradise before their souls have reached it, and that is a great danger.

What are so mysterious as the eyes of a child?

death ... is not a great affair! Think - it happens once only - to each of us - as birth does. What do you know about being born? that - and no more - will you know about the act of death.

We do good by ourselves, but we seldom do wrong alone.

If a writer is true to his characters they will give him his plot. Observations must play second fiddle to integrity.

Luck enters into every contingency. You are a fool if you forget it -- and a greater fool if you count upon it.

The only creative power I know is that of what might roughly be called 'love'; not of course a sentimental love: a far more impersonal and less individual emotion. I sometimes think that migratory birds may have it for each other. They fly in the same direction, and have never been seen to interfere with each other's flights.