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.

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

A blow with a word strikes deeper than a blow with a sword.

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.

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He read more

He had read much, if one considers his long life; but his contemplation was much more than his reading. He was wont to say that if he had read as much as other men he should have known no more than other men.

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.

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

Wear the old coat and buy the new book.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said read more

I must claim the quoter's privilege of giving only as much of the text as will suit my purpose, said Tan-Chun. If I told you how it went on, I should end up by contradicting myself!

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.