Publicity in women is detestable. Anonymity runs in their blood. The desire to be veiled still possesses them. They are not even now as concerned about the health of their fame as men are, and, speaking generally, will pass a tombstone or a signpost without feeling an irresistible desire to cut their names on it.

The poet gives us his essence, but prose takes the mould of the body and mind entire.

The word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.

every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works, yet we require critics to explain the one and biographers to expound the other. That time hangs heavy on people's hands is the only explanation of the monstrous growth.

It is the duty of the writer to describe.

You cannot cross the narrow bridge of art carrying all its tools in your hands. Some you must leave behind.

To read a novel is a difficult and complex art.