The advantage, the luxury, as well as the torment and responsibility of the novelist, is that there is no limit to what he may attempt as an executant - no limit to his possible experiments, efforts, discoveries, successes.

The only obligation to which in advance we may hold a novel without incurring the accusation of being arbitrary, is that it be interesting.

Experience is never limited, and it is never complete; it is an immense sensibility, a kind of huge spider-web, of the finest silken threads, suspended in the …

The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

There are no laws for the novel. There never have been, nor can there ever be.

I wish to write such rhymes as shall not suggest a restraint, but contrariwise the wildest freedom.

Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere, I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude, And with forced fingers rude Sh…