We are uneasy with an affectionate man, for we are positive he wants something of us, particularly our love.

Herman Melville was as separated from a civilized literature as the lost Atlantis was said to have been from the great peoples of the earth.

We cannot live, suffer or die for somebody else, for suffering is too precious to be shared.

When one realizes that his life is worthless he either commits suicide or travels.

Nothing in our times has become so unattractive as virtue.

Recognize the cunning man not by the corpses he pays homage to but by the living writers he conspires against with the most shameful weapon, Silence, or the briefest review.

It takes a long time to understand nothing.

Writing is conscience, scruple, and the farming of our ancestors.

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.

A strong foe is better than a weak friend.

Narcissus never wrote well nor was a friend.

The deeper I go into myself the more I realize that I am my own enemy.

The treasures in you must never be threatened by the gifts in others.

Beautiful souls are shaped by ugly experiences.

Who is wise in love, love most, say least.

Some beach, somewhere. There's a big umbrella casting shade over an empty chair. Palm trees are growin' and a warm breeze a blowing. I picture myself right there, on some beach, somewhere.

Baby steps are the royal road to skill.

Before catechisms can instill a proper humility, small children know the truth that their own existence has caused the world to bloom into being.

A sure sign of a crisis is the prevalence of cranks. It is characteristic of a crisis in theory that cranks get a hearing from the public which orthodoxy is failing to satisfy.

Any peace is better than any war

In pubs across the land, the customers speak of little else but lunar nutation, especially since the moon is nutating at this very moment.