The author, as a rule, dearly loves every line of his work, from the first stroke down to the dotlet on the i, and certainly has a right to it. – Gustav Boehm, “A Discourse on Title Page Composition,” in The Inland Printer (Ch

A perfectly healthy sentence, it is true, is extremely rare. For the most part we miss the hue and fragrance of the thought; as if we could be satisfied with the dews of the morning or evening without their colors, or the heavens without their azure. – Henry David Thoreau

A writer is somebody for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. – Thomas Mann, Essays of Three Decades, 1947