“For myself, I am no moralist: I consider that if you do what you want you must take what you get for it and that if you deny yourself things you will be better off than if you don’t.”

A compact statement of personal responsibility and self-restraint · The English Novel

• Character
• Morality
• Wisdom

“He has, that is to say, to render and not to tell.”

Ford’s concise formulation of the novelist’s task of presenting rather than explaining · The English Novel

• Art
• Skill
• Writing

“But, in the end, it is as useful to have something that will awaken you by its disagreements with yourself as to live for ever in concord with somnolent elders.”

Disagreement can stimulate thought more effectively than comfortable agreement · The English Novel

• Change
• Criticism
• Learning