“Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book.Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“Great books write themselves, only bad books have to be written.”

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope. They are the elect to whom beautiful things mean only Beauty. There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all.”

“A lot of truths about the living world are recorded in bad books; they are just badly written about.”

“The problem of knowledge is that there are many more books on birds written by ornithologists than books on birds written by birds and books on ornithologists written by birds”