“You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity.”

“All writing comes by the grace of God.”

“Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.”

“Things are pretty, graceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the imagination, not yet beautiful.”

“All writing is by the grace of God. People do not deserve to have good writing, they are so pleased with bad. In these sentences that you show me, I can find no beauty, for I see death in every clause and every word. There is a fossil or a mummy character which pervades this book. The best sepulchers, the vastest catacombs, Thebes and Cairo, Pyramids, are sepulchers to me. I like gardens and nurseries. Give me initiative, spermatic, prophesying, man-making words.”

“You shall have joy, or you shall have power, said God; you shall not have both.”

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.”