A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read.

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, read more

Writers seldom choose as friends those self-contained characters who are never in trouble, never unhappy or ill, never make mistakes, and always count their change when it is handed to them.

In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, read more

In America only the successful writer is important, in France all writers are important, in England no writer is important, and in Australia you have to explain what a writer is.

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre.

Good teaching is one-fourth preparation and three-fourths pure theatre.

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order read more

To write is to make oneself the echo of what cannot cease speaking -- and since it cannot, in order to become its echo I have, in a way, to silence it. I bring to this incessant speech the decisiveness, the authority of my own silence.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications.

Gentle words, quiet words, are after all the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing.

Gentle words, quiet words, are after all the most powerful words. They are more convincing, more compelling, more prevailing.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

That is the point of quotations. One can use another's words to be insulting.

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite read more

Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul.