Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are.

Journalism justifies its own existence by the great Darwinian principle of the survival of the vulgarist

An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them.

The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists exist simply in what they make, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in what they are. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look. The mere fact of having published a book of second-rate sonnets makes a man quite irresistible. He lives the poetry that he cannot write. The others write the poetry that they dare not realize.

Artists, like the Greek gods, are only revealed to one another.

Indeed, so far from being humorous, the male American is the most abnormally serious creature who ever existed.... It is only fair to admit that he can exaggerate, but even his exaggeration has a rational basis. It is not founded on wit or fancy; it does not spring from any poetic imagination....