“Whatever the word "great" means, Dickens was what it means. Even the fastidious and unhappy who cannot read his books without a continuous critical exasperation, would use the word of him without stopping to think. They feel that Dickens is a great writer even if he is not a good writer.”

“All good writers express the state of their souls, even (as occurs in some cases of very good writers) if it is a state of damnation.”

“It never occurred to him to be spiritually won over to the enemy. Many moderns, inured to a weak worship of intellect and force, might have wavered in their allegiance under this oppression of a great personality. . . . But this was a kind of modern meanness to which Syme could not sink even in his extreme morbidity. Like any man, he was coward enough to fear great force; but he was not coward enough to admire it.”

“The word "good" has many meanings. For example, if a man were to shoot his grandmother at a range of five hundred yards, I should call him a good shot, but not necessarily a good man.”

“There is a great deal of difference between an eager man who wants to read a book and a tired man who wants a book to read.”

“There is no harm in our criticizing foreigners, if only we would also criticize ourselves. In other words, the world might need even less of its new charity, if it had a little more of the old humility.”

“What are blue-stockings?' asked Tommy.Naturally you don't know,' replied the other. 'If you did, you would sympathize more with Bluebeard. They were ladies who were always reading books. They even read them aloud.”