When once the itch of literature comes over a man, nothing can cure it but the scratching of a pen. But if you have not a pen, I suppose you must scratch any way you can. – Samuel Lover, Handy Andy, 1842

I… was seized very early with a passion for literature, which has been the ruling passion of my life, and the great source of my enjoyments. – David Hume (1712–1776)

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. – Sarah Orne Jewett, letter to Willa Cather

The difference between journalism and literature is that journalism is unreadable and literature is not read. – Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray, 1891