Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

Definition of a classic: a book everyone is assumed to have read and often thinks they have.

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before read more

It is very perplexing how an intrepid frontier people, who fought a wilderness, floods, tornadoes, and the Rockies, cower before criticism, which is regarded as a malignant tumor in the imagination.

Some on commission, some for the love of learning, some because they have nothing better to do or because they read more

Some on commission, some for the love of learning, some because they have nothing better to do or because they hope these walls of books will deaden the drumming of the demon in their ears.

Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea.

Satire is often the reflection of a kind of moral nausea.

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of read more

I was allowed to ring the bell for five minutes until everyone was in assembly. It was the beginning of power.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

When I was born I was so surprised I didn't talk for a year and a half.

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he read more

Quotation... A writer expresses himself in words that have been used before because they give his meaning better than he can give it himself, or because they are beautiful or witty, or because he expects them to touch a cord of association in his reader, or because he wishes to show that he is learned and well read. Quotations due to the last motive are invariably ill-advised; the discerning reader detects it and is contemptuous; the undiscerning is perhaps impressed, but even then is at the same time repelled, pretentious quotations being the surest road to tedium.

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

The free-lance writer is a man who is paid per piece or per word or perhaps.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.

Though by whim, envy, or resentment led, they damn those authors whom they never read.