John Erskine

“Lets tell young people the best books are yet to written; the best painting, the best government the best of everything is yet to be done by them.”

“In the simplest terms, a leader is one who knows where she wants and gets up and goes.”

“It is fatal to suppose the great writer was too wise or too profound for us ever to understand him; to think of art so is not to praise but to murder it, for the next step after that tribute will be neglect of the masterpiece.”

“Music is the only language in which you cannot say a mean or sarcastic thing.”

“There's a difference between beauty and charm. A beautiful woman is one I notice. A charming woman is one who notices me.”

“Whenever we read a book we love, we change it, to some extent. We read into it our own interpretations, and the meanings which the words have taken on in our time. If a book is so rigid that it cannot lend itself to these fluctuations, it is useful only while it seems strictly true, and afterwards it is completely out of date.”

“Opinion is that exercise of the human will which helps us to make a decision without information.”