Thomas Hardy on writing

The sudden disappointment of a hope leaves a scar which the ultimate fulfillment of that hope never entirely removes.

Patience, that blending of moral courage with physical timidity.

Like the British Constitution, she owes her success in practice to her inconsistencies in principle.

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