“Scarcely anything in literature is worth a damn except what is written between the lines.”
“Drawing is the poet's written line, set down to see if there be a story worth telling, a truth worth revealing.”
“No fiction is worth reading except for entertainment. If it entertains and is clean, it is good literature, or its kind. If it forms the habit of reading, in people who might not read otherwise, it is the best literature.”
“What a grim feeling it is to come across a written line so exceptionally inspiring that your first reaction is, 'Criminy, why didn't I ever think to write that!'”
“...don't read anything except what destroys the insulation between yourself and your experience...”
“That was the chief difference between literature and life. In books, the proportion of exceptional to commonplace people is high; in reality, very low.”