“To knot a sentence up properly, it has to be thought out carefully, and revised. New phrases have to be put in; sudden changes of subject must be introducted; verbs must be shifted to unsuspected localities; short words must be excised with ruthless hand; archaisms must be sprinkled like sugar-plums upon the concoction; the fatal human tendency to say things straightforwardly must be detected and defeated by adroit reversals; and, if a glimmer of meaning yet remain under close scrutiny, it must be removed by replacing all the principal verbs by paraphrases in some dead language.”

“I’ve heard it said: ‘By his home you shall know him’; and we all know that we must pay attention to anyone who reverses the subject and auxiliary verb in his sentence.”

“The end of a novel, like the end of children’s dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plum”

“A short story must have a single mood and every sentence must build towards it.”

“You must love no-thingness,You must flee something,You must remain alone,And go to nobody.You must be very activeAnd free of all things.You must deliver the captivesAnd force those who are free.You must comfort the sickAnd yet have nothing yourself.You must drink the water of sufferingAnd light the fire of Love with the wood of the virtues.Thus you live in the true desert.”

“Talking about one's feelings defeats the purpose of having those feelings. Once you try to put the human experience into words, it becomes little more than a spectator sport. Everything must have a cause, and a name. Every random thought must have a root in something else.”