“Books want to be born: I never make them. They come to me and insist on being written, and on being such and such. ”

“The major sin is the sin of being born.”

“I have never written on any subject unless I believed that the authorities on it were hopelessly wrong.”

“An apology for the devil: it must be remembered that we have heard one side of the case. God has written all the books.”

“Books are like imprisoned souls till someone takes them down from a shelf and frees them.”

“we must judge men not so much by what they, as by what they make us feel that they have it in them to do. If a man has done enough in either painting, music, or the affairs of life, to make me feel that I might trust him in an emergency he has done enough”

“The oldest books are still only just out to those who have not read them.”