Quotes from William Dean Howells

Every one is expected to look out for himself here. I fancy that there would be very little rising if men were expected to rise for the sake of others, in America.

She liked the words; they satisfied her famine for phrases.

It's the whole country that makes or breaks a thing like this. New York has very little to do with it. Now if it were a play, it would be different. New York does make or break a play; but it doesn't make or break a book; it doesn't make or break a magazine. The great mass of the readers are outside of New York and the rural districts are what we have got to go for. They don't read much in New York; they write and talk about what they've written. Don't you worry.

She was herself in that moment of life when, to the middle-aged observer, at least, a woman's looks have a charm which is wanting to her earlier bloom. By that time her character has wrought itself more clearly out in her face, and her heart and mind confront you more directly there. It is the youth of her spirit which has come to the surface. I

Why art thou but a nest of gloom While the bobolinks are singing?

It is the curse of prosperity that it takes work away from us, and shuts that door to hope and health of spirit.

An acre of performance is worth a whole world of promise.

You'll find as you grow older that you weren't born such a great while ago after all. The time shortens up.

Inequality is as dear to the American heart as liberty itself.