As in political so in literary action a man wins friends for himself mostly by the passion of his prejudices and the consistent narrowness of his outlook.

Fiction, at the point of development at which it has arrived, demands from the writer a spirit of scrupulous abnegation.The only legitimate of all the irreconcilable antagonisms that make our life so enigmatic, so burdensome, so fascinating, so dangerous--so full of hope. They exist! And this is the only fundamental truth of fiction.

Action is consolatory. It is the enemy of thought and the friend of flattering illusions.

It occurred to me that my speech or my silence, indeed any action of mine, would be a mere futility

All a man can betray is his conscience

This magnificent butterfly finds a little heap of dirt and sits still on it; but man will never on his heap of mud keep still...