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.

Reading is like permitting a man to talk a long time, and refusing you the right to answer.

Reading is like permitting a man to talk a long time, and refusing you the right to answer.

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

I think we must quote whenever we feel that the allusion is interesting or helpful or amusing.

By words the mind is winged.

By words the mind is winged.

Words represent your intellect. The sound, gesture and movement represent your feelings.

Words represent your intellect. The sound, gesture and movement represent your feelings.

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.

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.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.

Unlike other people, our reviewers are powerful because they believe in nothing.