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.

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

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

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

No entertainment is so cheap as reading, nor any pleasure so lasting.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

Criticism is an indirect form of self-boasting.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research.

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.

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to read more

Author: A fool who, not content with having bored those who have lived with him, insists on tormenting generations to come.

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.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.

If writers were good businessmen, they'd have too much sense to be writers.