He is not easy to describe. There is something wrong with his appearance; something displeasing, something downright detestable. I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce know why. He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong feeling of deformity, although I couldnโt specify the point. Heโs an extraordinary-looking man, and yet I really can name nothing out of the way. No sir; I can make no hand of it; I canโt describe him. And itโs not want of memory; for I declare I can see him this moment.
Robert Louis StevensonEvery child can remember laying his head in the grass, staring into the infinitesimal forest and seeing it grow populous with fairy armies.
Robert Louis StevensonThe most influential books, and the truest in their influence, are works of fiction. They repeat, they re-arrange, they clarify the lessons of life; they disengage us from ourselves, they constrain us to the acquaintance of others; and they show us the web of experience, but with a singular change-that monstrous, consuming ego of ours being, nonce, struck out.
Robert Louis StevensonFor my part, I travel not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
Robert Louis Stevenson