“An hour's conversation on literature between two ardent minds with a common devotion to a neglected poet is a miraculous road to intimacy.”

“Through the ingenuousness of her age beamed an ardent mind, a mind not of the women but of the poet; she did not please, she intoxicated.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

“We have hereafter only two roads to choose: one is to embrace the ancient literature and die, the other is to forsake the ancient literature and live.”

Lu Xun (1881–1936) Chinese novelist and essayist

“There is a difference between an ardent and a brilliant mind, a fiery spirit travels further and faster, while a brilliant mind is sparkling, attractive, accurate.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

“The human mind is [a poet's] individual mind at first, but as soon as he writes a poem it becomes our [the readers'] minds too. There is no self-expression in [a poet's] poem, because once the poem is there the individual [poet] has disappeared. …there is really no such thing as self-expression in literature.”

Northrop Frye (1912–1991) Canadian literary critic and literary theorist

“The best conversations remain those without space between two mouths.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

“The invariable mark of wisdom is to see the miraculous in the common.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

“We have a choice. We have two options as human beings. We have a choice between conversation and war. That's it. Conversation and violence. And faith is a conversation stopper.”

Sam Harris (1967) American author, philosopher and neuroscientist

“The hours of the morning between breakfast and lunch were the time which the inhabitants of Riseholme chiefly devoted to spying on each other”

E. F. Benson book Queen Lucia

“As a work of art it has the same status as a long conversation between two not very bright drunks…”

Clive James (1939–2019) Australian author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist