“Literature is too full of 'acknowledgments' and squabbles about originality...”

“In literature the ambition of the novice is to acquire the literary language; the struggle of the adept is to get rid of it.”

“Wilde's permanent celebrity belongs to literature, and only his transient notoriety to police news.”

“Oh, well, if you want original conversations, you'd better go and talk to yourself.”

“My main reason for adopting literature as a profession was that, as the author is never seen by his clients, he need not dress respectably.”

“...a man of great common sense and good taste, meaning thereby a man without originality or moral courage.”

“Hell is full of musical amateurs.”