It follows that the one thing we should not do to the men and women of past time, and particularly if they ghost through to us as larger than life, is to take them out...

To punish someone for your own mistakes or for the consequences of your own actions, to harm another by shifting blame that is rightly yours; this is a wretched and cowardly sin.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

I find the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.

Criticism can never instruct or benefit you. Its chief effect is that of a telegram with dubious news. Praise leaves no glow behind, for it is a writer’s habit to remember nothing good of himself....

Censors never go after books unless kids already like them. I don’t even think they know to go after books until they know that children are interested in reading this book, therefore there must be...