Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

Essential characteristic of the really great novelist: a Christ-like, all-embracing compassion.

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.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought read more

No man means all he says, and yet very few say all they mean, for words are slippery and thought is viscous.

Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of read more

Today the discredit of words is very great. Most of the time the media transmit lies. In the face of an intolerable world, words appear to change very little. State power has become congenitally deaf, which is why --but the editorialists forget it --terrorists are reduced to bombs and hijacking.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

Writers like teeth are divided into incisors and grinders.

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.

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want read more

People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall.