“Say on, sayers! sing on, singers! Delve! mould! pile the words of the earth! Work on, age after age, nothing is to be lost, It may have to wait long, but it will certainly come in use, When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.”

“When the materials are ready, the architects shall appear.”

“Sing, boy! sing! The ages are waiting for you. Sing! sing! All the world will hear you. God knows what will come of it.”

“I used the phrase 'a certain age.' What I mean by this is the age people are in their heads. It's usually thirty to thirty-four. Nobody is forty in their head. When it comes to your internal age, chin wattles and relentless liver spots mean nothing.”

“No matter how good the walls and the materials are; if the foundations are not strong, the building will not stand. By and by, in some upper room, a crack will appear; and men will say: "There is the crack; but the cause is the foundation." So if, in youth, you lay the foundation of your character wrongly, the penalty will be sure to follow. The crack may be far down in old age, but somewhere it will certainly appear.”

“I suspect that the age of letters is waning, for our time. It is the age of Panama Canals, of Sandra Bernhardt, of Western wheat raising, of merely material expansion. Art, form, may return, but I doubt I shall live to see them--I don't believe they are as eternal as the poets say.”