Books do pretend …but squeezed in between is even more that is true—without what you may call the lies, the pages would be too light for the truth, you see?
‘Pity without rigor would be cowardly egotism, mere sentimentality.’
Longfellow smiled. “A great part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, my dear Lowell, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.
It is not when a man is at the end of his life, but when a man is at the end of his profession, that his soul shows itself.
He worshipped at the temple of her intellect and I believe it was a comfort to him to know that she left our world with it still shining.
These writers take the essence of every person around them, turn them into books and stories without permission or even a simple thank-you, and want all the credit and glory for themselves.
A man was leaning idly against an elm. … The man, who towered over the poet even at his slanting angle, too old for a student and too worn for a faculty member, stared at him with the familiar, insatiable gleam of the literary admirer.
exaggeration is the octopus of the English language
Though an angel should write, still ’tis devils must print
People hate the idea of politicians, you see, but love the idea of authors, at least until they meet one.
Avoid the Holy Grail, the heroic journeys, the pursuit of a legend–that is not the life of the bookaneer, who must keep his eyes on the ground while other book people live by dreaming.
A man’s library opens up his character to the world.
When it comes to referring to Dickens’s life, performing plays with your nine children for friends and family during Christmas is Dickensian.
I don’t like my birthday. I don’t like things that are directed towards me. It took me a long time to get over people asking me to write my name in the book.