Books Are A Refuge, A Sort Of

All Art Does But Consist In The Removal Of Surplusage.

Such Discussions Help Us Very Little To Enjoy What Has Been Well Done In Art Or Poetry, To Discriminate Between What Is More And What Is Less Excellent In Them, Or To Use Words Like Beauty, Excellence, Art, Poetry, With A More Precise Meaning Than They Would Otherwise Have.

A Book, Like A Person, Has Its Fortunes With One; Is Lucky Or Unlucky In The Precise Moment Of Its Falling In Our Way, And Often By Some Happy Accident Counts With Us For Something More Than Its Independent Value.

To Burn Always With This Hard, Gemlike Flame, To Maintain This Ecstasy, Is Success In Life . . . Not The Fruit Of Experience, But Experience Itself, Is The End . . . For Art Comes To You Professing Frankly To Give Nothing But The Highest Quality To Your Moments As They Pass, And Simply For Those Moments' Sake.

What We Have To Do Is To Be Forever Curiously Testing New Opinions And Courting New Impressions.