“Create yourself. Be yourself your poem.”

“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit.”

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”

“Let me be dressed as I will, yet flies worms and flowers exceed me still.”

“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow. To forget time, to forgive life, to be at peace.”

“The True Artist has the planet for his pedestal; the adventurer, after years of strife, has nothing broader than his shoes.”

“An artist spends himself like the crayon in his hand, till he is all gone.”

“What portion in the world can the artist have, Who has awakened from the common dream, But dissipation and despair?”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“If it be true that good wine needs no bush, 'tis true that a good play needs no epilogue.”

“The object of Art is to give life a shape.”

“Virtue and genuine graces in themselves speak what no words can utter.”

“Then others for breath of words respect, Me for my dumb thoughts, speaking in effect.”

“Nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will.”

“Nor age so eat up my invention.”

“Ideas are the very coinage of your brain.”

“Where art thou, Muse, that thou forget'st so long / To speak of that which gives thee all thy might?”

“I am not bound to please thee with my answer.”

“Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret me, you cannot play upon me.”

“In maiden meditation, fancy free.”

“Weed your better judgments of all opinion that grows rank in them.”

“A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a threadball thrown at a mark, but the other end remains on the thrower”

“If I know your sect, I anticipate your argument”

“We're not trying to entertain the critics ... I'll take my chances with the public.”

“To write weekly, to write daily, to write shortly, to write for busy people catching trains in the morning or for tired people coming home in the evening, is a heartbreaking task for men who know good writing from bad. They do it, but instinctively draw out of harm's way anything precious that might be damaged by contact with the public, or anything sharp that might irritate its skin.”

“What makes it possible for politicians to do so many things that are economically counterproductive is that neither the public nor the media know enough of the basics to understand what's wrong with what they're saying.”

“The breach of customIs breach of all.”

“Liberty plucks justice by the nose; The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart Goes all decorum.”

“What is the city but the people?”