It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.

The face of nature and civilization in this our country is to a certain point a very sufficient literary field. But it will yield its secrets only to a really grasping imagination. To write well and worthily of American things one need even more than elsewhere to be a master.

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

I adore adverbs they are the only qualifications I really much respect.

The only success worth one's powder was success in the line of one's idiosyncrasy... what was talent but the art of being completely whatever one happened to be?

Ideas are, in truth, force.

A man who pretends to understand women is bad manners. For him to really to understand them is bad morals.

We work in the dark - we do what we can - we give what we have. Our doubt is our passion and our passion is our task. The rest is the madness of art.