We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donn´e: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.

The artist beholds in nature more than she herself Nature is conscious of.

The critical sense is so far from frequent that it is absolutely rare, and the possession of the cluster of qualities that minister to it is one of the highest distinctions... In this light one sees the critic as the real helper of the artist, a torchbearing outrider, the interpreter, the brother... Just in proportion as he is sentient and restless, just in proportion as he reacts and reciprocates and penetrates, is the critic a valuable instrument.

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

She had her own way of doing all that she did, and this is the simplest description of a character which, although by no means without liberal motions, rarely succeeded in giving an impression of suavity.

The effort really to see and really to represent is no idle business in face of the constant force that makes for muddlement. The great thing is indeed that the muddled state too is one of the very sharpest of the realities, that it also has color and form and character, has often in fact a broad and rich comicality.

Don't try so much to form your character - it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

Live as you like best, and your character will take care of itself. Most things are good for you; the exceptions are very rare.

What is either a picture or a novel that is not character?

Ideas are, in truth, forces. Infinite, too, is the power of personality. A union of the two always makes history.

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.

One might enumerate the items of high civilization, as it exists in other countries, which are absent from the texture of American life, until it should become a wonder to know what was left.

The power to guess the unseen from the seen, to trace the implication of things, to judge the whole piece by the pattern, the condition of feeling life, in general, so completely that you are well on your way to knowing any particular corner of it-this cluster of gifts may almost be said to constitute experience, and they occur in country and in town, and in the most differing stages of education.

It had been agreed between them that lighted candles at wayside inns, in strange countries amid mountain scenery, gave the evening meal a peculiar poetry.

She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movement of her own heart and the agitations of the world. For this reason, she was fond of seeing great crowds, and large stretches of country, of reading about revolutions and wars, of looking at historical pictures--a class of efforts to which she had often gone so far as to forgive much bad painting for the sake of the subject.

Novelist-Citizen of Two Countries Interpreter of his Generation on both Sides of the Sea.

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

To criticize is to appreciate, to appropriate, to take intellectual possession, to establish in fine a relation with the criticized thing and to make it one's own.

The effect, if not the prime office, of criticism is to make our absorption and our enjoyment of the things that feed the mind as aware of itself as possible, since that awareness quickens the mental demand, which thus in turn wanders further and further for pasture. This action on the part of the mind practically amounts to a reaching out for the reasons of its interest, as only by its ascertaining them can the interest grow more various. This is the very education of our imaginative life.

The practice of "reviewing"... in general has nothing in common with the art of criticism.

Criticism talks a good deal of nonsense, but even its nonsense is a useful force. It keeps the question of art before the world, insists upon its importance.

Nothing, of course, will ever take the place of the good old fashion of 'liking' a work of art or not liking it; the more improved criticism will not abolish that primitive, that ultimate, test.

We must grant the artist his subject, his idea, his donn´e: our criticism is applied only to what he makes of it.

Of course you're always at liberty to judge the critic. Judge people as critics, however, and you'll condemn them all!

“If time frightens us, this is because it works out the problem and the solution comes afterwards.”

“Every ideology is contrary to human psychology.”

“The world evades us because it becomes itself again. That stage scenery masked by habit becomes what it is. It withdraws at a distance from us.”

“The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth.”

“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.”

“Everything considered, a determined soul will always manage.”

“Your success and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them. But to be happy it is essential not to be too concerned with others. Consequently, there is no escape. Happy and judged, or absolved and wretched.”

“The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”

“Nobody realizes that some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.”

“Time will prolong time, and life will serve life.”

“If the world were clear, art would not exist.”

“Do not wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day.”

“Having money is a way of being free of money.”

“The slave begins by demanding justice and ends by wanting to wear a crown. He must dominate in his turn.”

“There is always a philosophy for lack of courage.”

“There always comes a time in history when the person who dares to say that 2+2=4 is punished by death. And the issue is not what reward or what punishment will be the outcome of that reasoning. The issue is simply whether or not 2+2=4.”

“In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.”

“Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.”

“Only it takes time to be happy. A lot of time. Happiness, too, is a long patience.”

“Don’t walk behind me; I may not lead. Don’t walk in front of me; I may not follow. Just walk beside me and be my friend.”

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

“Man is the only creature who refuses to be what he is.”

“Nothing can discourage the appetite for divinity in the heart of man.”

“Live to the point of tears.”

“You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.”

“Should I kill myself, or have a cup of coffee?”