"We did not look for character in it, for that is not Cooper's forte; nor did we expect that his heroine would be aught better than the inanimate thing she is."

"True! - nervous - very, very nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses, not destroyed, not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acut…"

"The most 'popular,' the most 'successful' writers among us, (for a brief period, at least) are, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, persons of mere address, perseverance, effrontery—in a word, busy-bo…"

"It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night."

"It is with literature as with law or empire – an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession."