Others

I am a galley slave to pen and ink.

Writers do not live one life, they live two. There is the living and then there is the writing. There is the second tasting.

A writer out of loneliness is trying to communicate like a distant star sending signals . . . he seeks to establish a relationship.

It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.

It is splendid to be a great writer, to put men into the frying pan of your words and make them pop like chestnuts.

The writer is an explorer. Every step is an advance into a new land.

The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.

A writer is a reader moved to emulation.

The writer of good will carries a lamp to illuminate the dark corners. Only that, nothing more—a tiny beam of light to show some hidden aspect of reality.

Apt words have pow’r to swage The tumors of a troubled mind, And are as balm to fester’d wounds.

The beautiful word begets the beautiful deed.

Words are like leaves, some wither every year, And every year a younger race succeeds.

Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind.

By words the mind is winged.

Words easy to be understood do often hit the mark, when high and learned ones do only pierce the air.

Same material, apparently; but one is vivid, brief, and can do damage.

There’s a hell of a distance between wisecracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wisecracking is simply calisthenics with words.

Humor does not include sarcasm, invalid irony, sardonicism, or any other form of cruelty. When these things are raised to a high point they can become wit.

It is with wits as with razors, which are never so apt to cut those they are employed on as when they have lost their edge.

The greatest fault of a penetrating wit is to go beyond the mark.

while we are thoroughly alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and we must hunger after them.

Wisdom is ofttimes nearer when we stoop Than when we soar.

It is characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.

The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper.