I ask of literature precisely those things of which I feel the lack in my own life. - James Branch Cabell

Men have begun to observe and classify, they turn from creation to Criticism. ... It is the Fashion to be a wit. ... one must be able to conceal indecency with elegant diction; manners are everything, morals nothing.

I quite fixedly believe the Wardens of Earth sometimes unbar strange windows, that face on other worlds than ours. And some of us, I think, once in a while get a peep through these windows. But we are not permitted to get a long peep, or an unobstructed peep, nor very certainly, are we permitted to see all there is — out yonder. The fatal fault, sir, of your theorizing is that it is too complete. It aims to throw light upon the universe, and therefore is self-evidently moonshine. The Wardens of Earth do not desire that we should understand the universe, Mr. Kennaston; it is part of Their appointed task to insure that we never do; and because of Their efficiency every notion that any man, dead, living, or unborn, might form as to the universe will necessarily prove wrong.

Then, too, he had a sort of prejudice against the way in which Florimel spent her time in seducing and murdering young men.