To note an artist's limitations is but to define his talent. A reporter can write equally well about everything that is presented ...to his view, but a creative writer can do his best only with what lies within the range and character of his deepest sympathies.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The "sayings" of a community, its proverbs, are its characteristic comment upon life; they imply its history, suggest its attitude... toward the world and its way of accepting life. Such an idiom makes the finest language any writer can have; and he can never get it with a notebook. He himself must be able to think and feel in that speech--it is a gift from heart to heart.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
If [the writer] achieves anything noble, anything enduring, it must be by giving himself absolutely to his material. And this gift... of sympathy is his great gift; is the fine thing in him that alone can make his work fine.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
The thing that teases the mind over and over for years, and at last gets itself put down rightly on paper--whether little or great..., it belongs to Literature.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »