Tell me", he wanted to say, "everything in the whole world" - for he had the wildest, most absurd, extravagant ideas about poets and poetry - but how to speak to a man who does not see you? who sees ogres, satyrs, perhaps the depth of the sea instead?

The mind which is most capable of receiving impressions is very often the least capable of drawing conclusions.

I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it's ripe; it will be exquisite by September.

The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.

to teach without zest is a crime.

That complete statement which is literature.

In fact, though their acquaintance had been so short, they had guessed, as always happens between lovers, everything of any importance about each other in two seconds at the utmost, and it now remained only to fill in such unimportant details as what they were called; where they lived; and whether they were beggars or people of substance.