“A bad book is as much of a labor to write as a good one; it comes as sincerely from the author's soul.”

“The main reason to use Booki rather than a word processor to write a book is to effectively collaborate with other authors. The book you are reading is my second attempt to do this (and the Spanish translation of my first FLOSS Manual would definitely qualify as a third) so my opinions on this might be worth something.The first thing is that there are good reasons to collaborate and not so good. A good one is that your collaborator can bring expertise to the book that you don't have. A bad one is that you think there will be less work for you if you have a collaborator. There are many human activities where "Many hands make light labor". Writing a book isn't one of them.”

“Attacking bad books is not only a waste of time but also bad for the character. If I find a book really bad, the only interest I can derive from writing about it has to come from myself, from such display of intelligence, wit and malice as I can contrive. One cannot review a bad book without showing off.”

“An author, whether good or bad, or between both, is an animal whom every body is privileged to attack: for though all are not able to write books, all conceive themselves able to judge them.”

“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”

“No one ought to expect to see much good resulting from his labors in word, and doctrine, if he is not much given to prayer and meditation.”