You learn more quickly under the guidance of experienced teachers. You waste a lot of time going down blind alleys if you have no one to lead you.

The nature of men and women - their essential nature - is so vile and despicable that if you were to portray a person as he really is, no one would believe you.

The author always loads his dice, but he must never let the reader see that he has done so.

Follow your inclinations with due regard to the policeman round the corner.

There is nothing so degrading as the constant anxiety about one's means of livelihood.

For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life.

People who ask for your criticism want only praise.