“Capture your reader, let him not depart, from dull beginnings that refuse to start”

“He gets every vote who combines the useful with the pleasant, and who, at the same time he pleases the reader, also instructs him.”

“Let him live under the open sky, and dangerously.”

“The aim of the poet is to inform or delight, or to combine together, in what he says, both pleasure and applicability to life. In instructing, be brief in what you say in order that your readers may grasp it quickly and retain it faithfully. Superfluous words simply spill out when the mind is already full. Fiction invented in order to please should remain close to reality.”

“Begin, be bold, and venture to be wise.”

“He who combines the useful and the pleasing wins out by both instructing and delighting the reader. That is the sort of book that will make money for the publisher, cross the seas, and extend the fame of the author.”

“You must often make erasures if you mean to write what is worthy of being read a second time; and don't labor for the admiration of the crowd, but be content with a few choice readers”