Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.

A woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction.

A woman knows very well that, though a wit sends her his poems, praises her judgment, solicits her criticism, and drinks her tea, this by no means signifies that he respects her opinions, admires her understanding, or will refuse, though the rapier is denied him, to run through the body with his pen.

Was not writing poetry a secret transaction, a voice answering a voice?

Green in nature is one thing, green in literature another. Nature and letters seem to have a natural antipathy; bring them together and they tear each other to pieces.

Literature is strewn with the wreckage of those who have minded beyond reason the opinion of others.

For once the disease of reading has laid upon the system it weakens so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.

A fine gentleman like that, they said, had no need of books. Let him leave books, they said, to the palsied or the dying. But worse was to come. For once the disease of reading has laid hold upon the system it weakens it so that it falls an easy prey to that other scourge which dwells in the ink pot and festers in the quill. The wretch takes to writing.

Writing is like sex. First you do it for love, then you do it for your friends, and then you do it for money.