Genius ... is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one. |
Gloom and solemnity are entirely out of place in even the most rigorous study of an art originally intended to make glad the heart of man. |
Good art however ''immoral'' is wholly a thing of virtue. Good art can NOT be immoral. By good art I mean art that bears true witness, I mean the art that is most precise. |
Good writers are those who keep the language efficient. That is to say, keep it accurate, keep it clear. |
Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree |
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts. |
Humanity is the rich effluvium, it is the waste and the manure and the soil, and from it grows the tree of the arts. |
I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later. |
I could I trust starve like a gentleman. It's listed as part of the poetic training, you know. |
I guess the definition of a lunatic is a man surrounded by them. |
I have always thought the suicide should bump off at least one swine before taking off for parts unknown. |
I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible. |
I should consent to breed under pressure, if I were convinced in any way of the reasonableness of reproducing the species. But my nerves and the nerves of any woman I could live with three months, would produce only a victim... lacking in impulse, a mere bundle of discriminations. If I were wealthy I might subsidize a stud of young peasants, or a tribal group in Tahiti. |
If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good |
If a nation's literature declines, the nation atrophies and decays. |