Christian Nestell Bovee Writing Quotations

Genius makes its observations in short-hand; talent writes them out at length.

A book should be luminous not voluminous.

It is safer to quote what is written than what is spoken. What a man writes it is fair to presume he believes as a matter of general conviction, but it is not so with what he utters in the freedom of conversation. In that he may only express the feeling of the moment, and not his settled judgment, or matured opinion.

There is probably no hell for authors in the next world - they suffer so much from critics and publishers in this.

All good writing leaves something unexpressed.

If it is a distinction to have written a good book, it is also a disgrace to have written a bad one.

In general, inquiry ceases when we adopt a theory. After that, we overlook whatever makes against it, and see and think, and talk and write, only in its favor. Indeed, when we have a snug, comfortable theory, to which we are much attached, they appear to us as a very mean set of facts that will not square with it.