“You must write for children the same way you write for adults, only better.”

“What I'd like is to meet a man I could take off my hat to and say: "Thank you for having got born, and the longer you live the better.”

“If it is true that only misfortune can awaken a man's soul, it is a bitter truth, one that is hard to hear and accept, and it is only natural that many people deny it and say it is better for a man to live on in a trance than to wake up to torture.”

“Keep reading books, but remember that a book’s only a book, and you should learn to think for yourself.”

“I do not care to see men better off – but better!”

“The poor are always rich in children, and in the dirt and ditches of this street there are groups of them from morning to night, hungry, naked and dirty. Children are the living flowers of the earth, but these had the appearance of flowers that have faded prematurely, because they grew in ground where there was no healthy nourishment.”

“However low he may fall, a man can never deny himself the delight of feeling cleverer, more powerful or even better fed than his companions.”