"It is a good plan to have..." - Quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr

“People who honestly mean to be true really contradict themselves much more rarely than those who try to be 'consistent'.”

“Controversy equalizes fools and wise men in the same way - and the fools know it.”

“No families take so little medicine as those of doctors, except those of apothecaries.”

“There are some books that refuse to be written. They stand their ground year after year and will not be persuaded. It isn't because the book is not there and worth being written -- it is only because the right form of the story does not present itself. There is only one right form for a story and if you fail to find that form the story will not tell itself.”

“A book has got smell. A new book smells great. An old book smells even better. An old book smells like ancient Egypt.”

“I know some who are constantly drunk on books as other men are drunk on whiskey.”

“Every good book should be entertaining. A good book will be more; it must not be less. Entertainment…is like a qualifying examination. If a fiction can’t provide that, we may be excused from inquiring into its higher qualities.”

“The more imagination the reader has ... the more he will do for himself. He will, at a mere hint from the author, flood wretched material with suggestion and never guess that he is himself chiefly making what he enjoys.”

“[If a book were] very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. Every man in the United States will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy and to read what he pleases.”