Quotes to inspire and reflect

Write how you want, the critic shall show the world you could have written better.

You need a high degree of corruption or a very big heart to love absolutely everything.

Prolonged, indiscriminate reviewing of books is a quite exceptionally thankless, irritating and exhausting job.

Men over 40 are no judges of a book written in a new spirit.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense.

I’D RATHER BE HISSED AT FOR A GOOD VERSE, THAN APPLAUDED FOR A BAD ONE.

It’s easier to write about those you hate – just as it’s easier to criticise a bad play or a bad book.

A bad review may spoil your breakfast but you shouldn’t allow it to spoil your lunch.

HAS ANYBODY EVER SEEN A DRAMA CRITIC IN THE DAYTIME? I DOUBT IT.

We are always the same age inside.

I DON’T BELIEVE IN AGEING. I BELIEVE IN FOREVER ALTERING ONE’S ASPECT TO THE SUN.

Old age comes on suddenly, and not gradually as is thought.

TRUE TERROR IS TO WAKE UP ONE MORNING AND DISCOVER THAT YOUR HIGH SCHOOL CLASS IS RUNNING THE COUNTRY.

WE ARE SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON; AND OUR LITTLE LIFE IS ROUNDED WITH A SLEEP.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.

AGE DOES NOT PROTECT YOU FROM LOVE. BUT LOVE, TO SOME EXTENT, PROTECTS YOU FROM AGE.

THE AFTERNOON KNOWS WHAT THE MORNING NEVER SUSPECTED.

The wiser mind mourns less for what Age takes away, than what it leaves behind.

Time and tide will wait for no man, saith the adage. But all men have to wait for time and tide.

PEOPLE ALWAYS LIVE FOREVER WHEN THERE IS ANY ANNUITY TO BE PAID THEM.

MY SUN SETS TO RISE AGAIN.

You can be young without money but you can’t be old without it.

To get back my youth I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or be respectable.

THERE IS ONLY ONE CURE FOR GREY HAIR. IT WAS INVENTED BY A FRENCHMAN. IT IS CALLED THE GUILLOTINE.

Only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.

The older one grows, the more one likes indecency.

I go so far as to say that any library is a good library that does not contain a volume by Jane Austen. Even if it contains no other book.

SOME EDITORS ARE FAILED WRITERS, BUT SO ARE MOST WRITERS.

A fly, sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

There are books of which the backs and covers are by far the best parts.

AS A SLEUTH YOU ARE POOR. YOU COULDN’T DETECT A BASS-DRUM IN A TELEPHONE-BOOTH.

He hath never fed of the dainties that are bred in a book; he hath not eat paper, as it were; he hath not drunk ink: his intellect is not replenished.

NO ONE CAN HAVE A HIGHER OPINION OF HIM THAN I HAVE, AND I THINK HE’S A DIRTY LITTLE BEAST.

You look wise. Pray correct that error.

The work of a queasy undergraduate scratching his pimples.

THERE ARE TWO WAYS OF DISLIKING POETRY, ONE WAY IS TO DISLIKE IT, THE OTHER IS TO READ POPE.

It is a wise child that knows its own father, and an unusual one that unreservedly approves of him.

A LADY, WITHOUT A FAMILY, WAS THE VERY BEST PRESERVER OF FURNITURE IN THE WORLD.

FEW MISFORTUNES CAN BEFALL A BOY WHICH BRING WORSE CONSEQUENCES THAN TO HAVE A REALLY AFFECTIONATE MOTHER.

FAMILIES BREAK UP WHEN PEOPLE TAKE HINTS YOU DON’T INTEND AND MISS HINTS YOU DO INTEND.

IT IS A MELANCHOLY TRUTH THAT EVEN GREAT MEN HAVE THEIR POOR RELATIONS.

This was the trouble with families. Like invidious doctors, they knew just where it hurt.

DON’T HOLD YOUR PARENTS UP TO CONTEMPT. AFTER ALL… IT IS JUST POSSIBLE THAT YOU MAY TAKE AFTER THEM.

AFTER A GOOD DINNER ONE CAN FORGIVE ANYBODY, EVEN ONE’S OWN RELATIONS.

WHEN A SINISTER PERSON MEANS TO BE YOUR ENEMY, THEY ALWAYS START BY TRYING TO BECOME YOUR FRIEND.

Some people go to priests; others to poetry; I to my friends.

Love is blind; friendship closes its eyes.

A FRIEND IS ONE TO WHOM ONE MAY POUR OUT THE CONTENTS OF ONE’S HEART, CHAFF AND GRAIN TOGETHER, KNOWING THAT GENTLE HANDS WILL TAKE AND SIFT IT.