We are the words; we are the music; we are the thing itself.

If behind the erratic gunfire of the press the author felt that there was another kind of criticism, the opinion of people readingfor the love of reading, slowly and unprofessionally, and judging with great sympathy and yet with great severity, might this not improve the quality of his work? And if by our means books were to become stronger, richer, and more varied, that would be an end worth reaching.

... the transaction between a writer and the spirit of the age is one of infinite delicacy, and upon a nice arrangement between the two the whole fortune of his works depend.

Every secret of a writer's soul, every experience of his life, every quality of his mind is written large in his works.

The eyes of others our prisons; their thoughts our cages.

Travelers are much at the mercy of phrases ... vast generalizations formulate in their exposed brains.

It is the duty of the writer to describe.