THE WRITINGS 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

Plain-speaking or Rude Speaking Praised it enough to satisfy the author Pseudo-realists Public wish to be amused rather than edified Real artistocracy is above social prejudice Reformers, who are so often tedious and ridiculous Refused to see us as we see ourselves Shackles of belief worn so long She liked to get all she could out of her emotions Society interested in a woman's past, not her future Teach what they do not know Somewhat too studied grace Sunny gayety of self-forgetfulness Secretly admires the splendors he affects to despise Self-satisfied, intolerant, and hypocritical provinciality Submitted, as people always do with the trials of others Tediously analytical They are so many and I am so few Truth is beyond invention Used to ingratitude from those he helped Vacuous vulgarity We did not know that we were poor We're company enough for ourselves What we thought ruin, but what was really release When she's really sick, she's better Wonder why we hate the past so?—"It's so damned humiliating!" You can't go back to anything You may do a great deal (of work), and not get on You marry a man's future as well as his past You cannot be at perfect ease with a friend who does not joke