Isabel Paterson

“The humanitarian in theory is the terrorist in action”. –Isabel Paterson

Edith Wharton

“True originality consists not in a new manner, but in a new vision”. –Edith Wharton

Frederick Rolfe

“Brisk and prompt to war, soft and not in the least able to resist calamity, fickle in catching at schemes, and always striving after novelties — French characteristics remained unaltered twenty centuries after Julius Caesar made a note of them for all time”. –Frederick Rolfe

Charles Dibdin

“For a soldier I listed, to grow great in fame. And be shot at for sixpence a day”. –Charles Dibdin

William Saroyan

“I care so much about everything that I care about nothing”. –William Saroyan

Charles Reade

“The fortunate man is he who, born poor, or nobody, works gradually up to wealth and consideration, and, having got them, dies before he finds they were not worth so much trouble”. –Charles Reade

John Updike

“Like water, blood must run or grow scum”. –John Updike

Theodore Dreiser

“If I were to personally define religion, I would say that it is a bandage that man has invented to protect a soul made bloody by circumstance”. –Theodore Dreiser

Elizabeth Gaskell

“People may flatter themselves just as much by thinking that their faults are always present to other people’s minds, as if they believe that the world is always contemplating their individual charms and virtues”. –Elizabeth Gaskell

Apuleius

“Familiarity breeds contempt, but privacy excites interest”. –Apuleius

Hugh Kingsmill

“Writers are idolized not because they love their fellow men, which is never a recommendation and in extreme instances leads to crucifixion, but because their self-love is in tune with current fears and desires, and in giving it expression they are speaking for an inarticulate multitude”. –Hugh Kingsmill

Stefan Zweig

“The organic fundamental error of humanism was that it desired to educate the common people (on whom it looked down) from its lofty stance instead of trying to understand them and to learn from them”. –Stefan Zweig

Alfred Austin

“Is life worth living? Yes, so long As there is wrong to right”. –Alfred Austin

Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Long, long may it be, ere he comes again! His hour is one of darkness, and adversity, and peril”. –Nathaniel Hawthorne

Stig Dagerman

“I come to understand what purity is: it means to feel something so wholeheartedly that it shrivels up all doubts, all cowardice and all considerations within one”. –Stig Dagerman

George Moore

“The lot of critics is to be remembered by what they failed to understand”. –George Moore

Eça de Queiroz

“Human effort may manage at its best to transform a starving proletariat into a well-fed bourgeoisie; but then a worse proletariat emerges from the bowels of society. Jesus was right, there will always be the poor among us. Which proves that this humanity is the greatest error that God ever committed”. –Eça de Queiroz

Marcel Proust

“We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, and effort which no one can spare us”. –Marcel Proust

J.G. Ballard

“Human beings today… are surrounded by huge institutions we can never penetrate: the City, the banking system, political advertising conglomerates, vast entertainment enterprises. They’ve made themselves user friendly, but they define the tastes to which we conform. They’re rather subtle, subservient tyrants, but no less sinister for that”. –J.G. Ballard

Mary Shelley

“It is decided as you may have expected; all judges had rather that ten innocent should suffer than that one guilty should escape”. –Mary Shelley

Roger Zelazny

“The universe did not invent justice. Man did. Unfortunately, man must reside in the universe”. –Roger Zelazny

Ronald Firbank

“The world is disgracefully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain”. –Ronald Firbank

Goldwin Smith

“The novelist must look on humanity without partiality or prejudice. His sympathy, like that of the historian, must be unbounded, and untainted by sect or party”. –Goldwin Smith

Nathalie Sarraute

“It’s the duty of all novelists, all painters, all musicians, all people who try to make art move: to look for something they feel authentically, without paying attention to styles”. –Nathalie Sarraute

Graham Greene

“A petty reason, perhaps, why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction”. –Graham Greene