“One science only will one genius fit/ So vast is art, so narrow human wit”

“Miss Austen’s novels … seem to me vulgar in tone, sterile in artistic invention, imprisoned in the wretched conventions of English society, without genius, wit, or knowledge of the world. Never was life so pinched and narrow. The one problem in the mind of the writer … is marriageableness.”

“His judgement demonstrates that one can be a genius and understand nothing of an art that is not one's own.”

“You see Miss Gertrude is a genius. And a genius is a genius. So what if no one understands a word she writes. Some day they might.”

“Life is so horrible that one can only bear it by avoiding it. And that can be done by living in the world of art.”

“He looked at her defiantly, and she thought: and so one at a time we all become human—human werewolves, human dwarfs, human trolls …the melting pot melts in one direction only, and so we make progress.”