“A great many people now reading and writing would be better employed keeping rabbits.”

“Isn't that why people keep diaries -- to be read by someone else? Why would they keep them otherwise?”

“Most men would feel insulted, if it were proposed to employ them in throwing stones over a wall, and then in throwing them back, merely that they might earn their wages. But many are no more worthily employed now.”

“Read a lot, write a lot is the great commandment.”

“The more you read and write, the better you think and live.”

“Many people think they cannot have knowledge or understanding of God without reading books. But hearing is better than reading, and seeing is better than hearing. Hearing about Benares is different from reading about it; but seeing Benares is different from either hearing or reading.”

“If many great books seem unreadable and unintelligible … it may be because we have not for a long time learned to read by reading them. Great books teach people not only how to read them, but how to read all other books.”

“When I originally started writing, I expected that probably very few people would read my poetry because in those days people didn’t read poetry much anyway.”

“Write the kind of story you would like to read. People will give you all sorts of advice about writing, but if you are not writing something you like, no one else will like it either.”

“If your book doesn't keep you up nights when you are writing it, it won't keep anyone up nights reading it.”