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.
Van Wyck BrooksNothing is so soothing to our self-esteem as to find our bad traits in our forebears. It seems to absolve us.
Van Wyck BrooksNo one in this country has any root anywhere; we don't live in America, we board here, we are like spiders that run over the surface of the water.
Van Wyck BrooksEarnest people are often people who habitually look on the serious side of things that have no serious side.
Van Wyck BrooksHow delightful is the company of generous people, who overlook trifles and keep their minds instinctively fixed on whatever is good and positive in the world about them. People of small caliber are always carping. They are bent on showing their own superiority, their knowledge or prowess or good breeding. But magnanimous people have no vanity, they have no jealousy, and they feed on the true and the solid wherever they find it. And what is more, they find it everywhere.
Van Wyck Brooks