"AT ABOUT THIS POINT the weak-hearted reader usually sits down in the road, removes his shoes and weeps that he 'is a bad linguist' or that he or she can't possibly learn all those languages. One has to divide the readers who want to be experts from those who do not, and divide, as it were, those who want to see the world from those who merely want to know WHAT PART OF IT THEY LIVE IN."

“Properly, we should read for power. Man reading should be man intensely alive. The book should be a ball of light in one's hand.”

“Genius is the capacity to see ten things where the ordinary man sees one.”

“Hang it all, Robert Browning, there can be but the one "Sordello."”

“The only thing one can give an artist is leisure in which to work. To give an artist leisure is actually to take part in his creation.”

“Winter is icumen in,Lhude sing Goddamm,Raineth drop and staineth slop,And how the wind doth ramm!   Sing: Goddamm.”

“Who brought this to pass?Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?Barbarous kings.A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,Three hundred and sixty thousand,And sorrow, sorrow like rain.”