The qualities of a second-rate writer can easily be defined, but a first-rate writer can only be experienced. It is just the thing in him which escapes analysis that makes him first-rate.

I have sometimes thought that his bursts of imaginative talk were fatal to his poetic gift. He squandered too much in the heat of personal communication.

Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

There was nothing but land; not a country at all, but the material out of which countries are made.

One may have staunch friends in one's own family, but one seldom has admirers.

A watch is the most essential part of a lecture.

Success is less interesting than struggle. There is great pleasure in the effort.