Do we take less pride in the possession of our home because its walls were built by some unknown carpenter, its tapestries woven by some unknown weaver on a far Oriental shore, in some antique time? No. We show our home to our friends with the pride as if it were our home, which it is. Why then should we take less pride when reading a book written by some long-dead author? Is it not our book just as much, or even more so, than theirs? So the landowner says, __ook at my beautiful home! Isn__ it fine?_ And not, __ook at the home so-and-so has built._ Thus we shouldn__ cry, __ook what so-and-so has written. What a genius so-and-so is!_ But rather, __ook at what I have read! Am I not a genius? Have I not invented these pages? The walls of this universe, did I not build? The souls of these characters, did I not weave?

To sense the peace of extinguished passionHappiness in not knowing the ultimate knowledge

At the end of the day your ability to connect with your readers comes down to how you make them feel.

It had ever, as I told the reader, been one of the singular blessings of my life, to be almost every hour of it miserably in love with some one....

I am this month one whole year older than I was this time twelve-month; and having got, as you perceive, almost into the middle of my fourth volume__nd no farther than to my first day's life_'tis demonstrative that I have three hundred and sixty-four days more life to write just now, than when I first set out; so that instead of advancing, as a common writer, in my work with what I have been doing at it__n the contrary, I am just thrown so many volumes back_

He who writes to his beloved every day is not a lover, but a writer.