Literature and Words

I reckon—when I count at all— First—Poets—Then the Sun— Then Summer—Then the Heaven of God— And then—the List is done— But, looking back—the First so seems To Comprehend the Whole— The Others look a needless Show— So I write—Poets—All—

And I may dine at journey’s end With Landor and with Donne.

You know who the critics are? The men who have failed in literature and art.

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’

History a distillation of rumour.

It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of ‘The Natural History of Iceland’, from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus:—‘ CHAP. Lxxii. Concerning snakes. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island.’

The proletarian state must bring up thousands of excellent ‘mechanics of culture’, ‘engineers of the soul’.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.

I find television very educational. Every time someone switches it on I go into another room and read a good book.

By bedside and easy chair, books promise a cozy, swift, and silent release from this world into another, with no current involved but the free and scarcely detectable crackle of brain cells.

Writers whose thoughts are expressed with clarity and precision are assumed by readers to be superficial. Where the meaning is obscured, then readers give more attention and consider the fruit of their labour more valuable

The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame.

Those who do not read the news are uninformed. Those who do are misinformed .

Happy will be those who give ear to the words of the dead: The reading of good works and the observing of their precepts.

Thirst will parch your tongue and your body will waste through lack of sleep ere you can describe in words that which painting instantly sets before the eye.

Experience is an author's most valuable asset; experience is the thing that puts the muscle and the breath and the warm blood into the book he writes .

A successful book is not made of what is in it, but what is left out of it .

Great deeds give choice of many tales. Choose a slight tale, enrich it large, and then let wise men listen.

The secret of all good writing is sound judgment.

I really don’t want to encourage younger writers. Keep them down and out and silent is my motto. Do they talk about encouraging younger actresses? No. You don’t want any younger actress to come along and outshine you.

A first-rate college library with a comfortable campus around it is a fine milieu for a writer. There is, of course, the problem of educating the young.

Our words must seem to be inevitable.