“Blifil's failure as a character in "Tom Jones" is ultimately due to the fact that he has absolutely no redeeming characteristics and once his base nature has been discovered by the reader there is nothing further to know about hi,”

“Thackeray is careful not to present a protagonist who is malevolently evil from birth; to trace a figure like this is unrewarding certainly to novelist and reader alike.”

“I'm sorry, but anyone who thinks the use of an angelic (or seemingly angelic character), whose likes have been written about for, oh, about 4,000 years, is ripping off Star Trek, has his head so thoroughly up his ass as to have blipped into an entirely new intestinally-based reality and desperately needs to get a wider frame of reference.”

“Every one of us has in himself a continent of undiscovered character. Happy is he who acts the Columbus to his own soul. ”

“Although he liked nearly everything else about himself, Keith hated his redeeming features. In his view they constituted his only major shortcoming -his one tragic flaw.”

“One cannot in the nature of things expect a little tree that has been turned into a club to put forth leaves.”

“That natural selection can produce changes within a type is disputed by no one, not even the staunchest creationist. But that it can transform one species into another — that, in fact, has never been observed.”