“Ian McEwan is a very good writer; the first half of Atonement alone would ensure him a lasting place in English letters.”

“Last place is first place in the very next race.”

“Every letter was a love letter. Of course, as love letters went, this one could have been better. It was not very promising, for instance, that Madeleine claimed not to want to see him for the next half-century.”

“Galt was the first writer to show the effects of the burgeoning industrial revolution, making him the first political novelist in the English language, and though his reputation has been overshadowed by Scott and Hogg, he is now recognised as one of the great writers of the age.”

“The first thing that distinguishes a writer is that he is most alive when alone.”

“That the last two letters in her name were the first two in his, a silly thing he never mentioned to her but caused him to believe that they were bound together.”

“Others such as these met him in the outer mountain and thought to mock him because he had not learned letters. And Antony said to them, 'What do you say? Which is first, mind or letters? And which is the cause of which— mind of letters or letters of mind.' And when they answered mind is first and the inventor of letters, Antony said, 'Whoever, therefore, has a sound mind has not need of letters.”

“The first half of life consists of the capacity to enjoy without the chance, the last half consists of the chance without the capacity. ”

“1) Writers who write for other writers should write letters.”

“Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop!”