Quote

To me, letters have always been a robust medium of sublimation. I don't remember what I was like before I learned my ABC's, but for as long as I can remember I have made them with my fingers and felt them in my bones.

Man does not live by words alone, in spite of the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.

Man does not live by words alone, despite the fact that sometimes he has to eat them.

Shakespeare is a permanent presence in the English letters.

I can scarcely manage to scribble a tolerable English letter. I know that I am not a scholar, but meantime I am aware that no man living knows better than I do the habits of our birds.

Wine is bottled poetry.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Lives of great men oft remind us as we o'er their pages turn, That we too may leave behind us - Letters that we ought to burn.

Writings scatter to the winds blank checks in an insane charge. And were they not such flying leaves, there would be no purloined letters.

A man who wants time to read and write must let the grass grow long.