“If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good”

“No one knows, at sight a masterpiece.And give up verse, my boy,There's nothing in it.Likewise a friend of Bloughram's once advised me:Don't kick against the pricks,Accept opinion. The Nineties tried your gameAnd died, there's nothing in it.”

“Man reading ought to be a man intensely alive. The book ought to be a ball of light in his hands. ”

“With one day's reading a man may have the key in his hands.”

“And the good writer chooses his words for their 'meaning', but that meaning is not a a set, cut-off thing like the move of knight or pawn on a chess-board. It comes up with roots, with associations, with how and where the word is familiarly used, or where it has been used brilliantly or memorably.”

“Good art however "immoral" is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can not be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise.”

“Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. It doesn't matter whether the good writer wants to be useful, or whether the good writer wants to be harm.”