A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tell a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's first novel will generally have sprung from the right cause.

(On Charles Dickens) It has been the peculiarity and the marvel of this man’s power, that he has invested his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense with human nature.

A novelist's characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. He must learn to hate them and to love them.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.