“Write out the story – rapidly, fluently, and not too critically – following the second or narrative-order synopsis. Change incidents and plot whenever the developing process seems to suggest such change, never being bound by any previous design.”

One superlatively important effect of wide reading is the enlargement of vocabulary which always accompanies it.

The earliest English attempts at rhyming probably included words whose agreement is so slight that it deserves the name of mere ‘assonance’ rather than that of actual rhyme.

A dog is a pitiful thing, depending wholly on companionship, and utterly lost except in packs or by the side of his master. Leave him alone, and he does not know what to do except bark and howl and trot about till sheer exhaustion forces him to sleep.

Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation, for, with a little conscientious research, we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.

The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.

The man or nation of high culture may acknowledge to great lengths the restraints imposed by conventions and honour, but beyond a certain point, primitive will or desire cannot be curbed.

I never ask a man what his business is, for it never interests me. What I ask him about are his thoughts and dreams.

All rationalism tends to minimalise the value and the importance of life and to decrease the sum total of human happiness.

Certain of Poe’s tales possess an almost absolute perfection of artistic form which makes them veritable beacon-lights in the province of the short story.

One can never produce anything as terrible and impressive as one can awesomely hint about.

The real lover of cats is one who demands a clearer adjustment to the universe than ordinary household platitudes provide; one who refuses to swallow the sentimental notion that all good people love dogs, children, and horses while all bad people dislike and are disliked by such.

All attempts at gaining literary polish must begin with judicious reading, and the learner must never cease to hold this phase uppermost. In many cases, the usage of good authors will be found a more effective guide than any amount of precept.

Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species – if separate species we be – for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.

I do not think that any realism is beautiful.

What a man does for pay is of little significance. What he is, as a sensitive instrument responsive to the world’s beauty, is everything!

There be those who say that things and places have souls, and there be those who say they have not; I dare not say, myself, but I will tell of The Street.

Algeria was therefore only the beginning of something that was in development: this is why I say that it’s the global capitalist system that finally reacted against us.

In my view, the Western model of influencing the development of third world countries is doomed to failure.

But all development programs of the United States and the European countries unfortunately exclude the private sector, which could make investments based on profitability.

Nothing is more stimulating and more salutary to (or for) the inner (or inward) development than the exemple of men devoted to the good.

We try to avoid the single-building syndrome. You have to look at the big picture. If you try to put social and cultural development ahead of economic development, it doesn’t work. You have to do it all together.

Pluralism is no longer simply an asset or a prerequisite for progress and development, it is vital to our existence.

We can, following the exemple of Kant, consider the moral development and improvement of men, as the supreme goal of human evolution.

While contemplating the objects of the senses, a person develops attachment for them, and from such attachment lust develops, and from lust anger arises.