Quotes and Images From The Works of William Dean Howells

Absolutely, so positively, so almost aggressively truthful Account of one's reading is an account of one's life Affections will not be bidden Beginning to grow old with touching courage Book that they are content to know at second hand Christianity had done nothing to improve morals and conditions Clemens was sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature Comfort from the thought that most things cannot be helped Contemptible he found our pseudo-equality Critical vanity and self-righteousness Critics are in no sense the legislators of literature Despair broke in laughter Dickens rescued Christmas from Puritan distrust Didn't reason about their beliefs, but only argued Disbeliever in punishments of all sorts Even a day's rest is more than most people can bear Everlasting rock of human credulity and folly Exchanging inaudible banalities Fear of asking too much and the folly of asking too little For most people choice is a curse Forbear the excesses of analysis Gift of waiting for things to happen Got out of it all the fun there was in it Government is best which governs least Habit of saying some friendly lying thing He was not bored because he would not be He had no time to make money He's so resting
He's the same kind of a man that he was a boy Heighten our suffering by anticipation Heroic lies His readers trusted and loved him I do not think any man ought to live by an art If one were poor, one ought to be deserving If he was half as bad, he would have been too bad to be Incredible in their insipidity Industrial slavery Lewd literature seems to give a sanction to lewdness in the life Lie, of course, and did to save others from grief or harm Life alone is credible to the young Livy: Well, if you are to be lost, I want to be lost with you Livy Clemens: the loveliest person I have ever seen Luxury of helplessness Married Man: after the first start-off he don't try Meet here to the purpose of a common ostentation Morbid egotism My reading gave me no standing among the boys Neatness that brings despair Never paid in anything but hopes of paying Never saw a dead man whom he did not envy New England necessity of blaming some one None of the passions are reasoned NYC, a city where money counts for more and goes for less Old man's disposition to speak of his infirmities Pathetic hopefulness