Nothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.

No man should ever publish a book until he has first read it to a woman.

No one is fit to judge a book until he has rounded Cape Horn in a sailing vessel, until he has bumped into two or three icebergs, until he has been lost in the sands of the desert, until he has spent a few years in the House of the Dead.

As against having beautiful workshops, studies, etc., one writes best in a cellar on a rainy day.

The instructed man is ashamed to pronounce in an Orphic manner what everybody knows, and because he is silent people think he is making fun of them.

Those of our writers who have possessed a vivid personal talent have been paralyzed by a want of social background.

People of small calibre are always carping. How affected so-and-so is! Don't you think he is silly? He was certainly quite mistaken about this or that. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or their prowess or good breeding.