William Makepeace Thackeray on writing

Bravery never goes out of fashion.

Stupid people, people who do not know how to laugh, are always pompous and self-conceited.

It is best to love wisely, no doubt; but to love foolishly is better than not to be able to love at all. Some of us can’t: and are proud of our impotence, too.

To write a good love letter, you ought to begin without knowing what you mean to say and to finish without knowing what you have written.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau1712–1778

• Love

Don’t use words too big for the subject. Don’t say ‘infinitely’ when you mean ‘very’; otherwise you’ll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

Benjamin Franklin1706–1790

• Reading