William McFee

"One must choose between Obscurity with Efficiency, and Fame with its inevitable collateral of Bluff. There is a period, well on toward middle life, when a man can say such things to himself and feel comforted."

"A young man must let his ideas grow, not be continually rooting them up to see how they are getting on."

"A trouble is a trouble, and the general idea, in the country, is to treat it as such, rather than to snatch the knotted cords from the hand of God and deal out murderous blows."

"It is extraordinary how many emotional storms one may weather in safety if one is ballasted with ever so little gold."

"The world belongs to the enthusiast who keeps cool."

"Terrible and sublime thought, that every moment is supreme for some man and woman, every hour the apotheosis of some passion!"

"If fate means you to lose, give him a good fight anyhow."

"People dont ever seem to realise that doing whats rights no guarantee against misfortune."

"Responsibilitys like a string we can only see the middle of. Both ends are out of sight."

"London is always beautiful to those who love and understand that extraordinary microcosm; but at five of a summer morning there is about her an exquisite quality of youthful fragrance and debonair freshness which goes to the heart."

"He tells a story with the narrative power of a master of that art. His prose style has the rare combination of rhythm and smoothness together with a great deal of force... A quality not so much of style as of the writers personality is his quiet, dry, and cutting humor. It crops out everywhere in his work... In the matter of his use of words, McFee seems to be going through some evolution. In Casuals of the Sea, he employs a number of words that necessitate more than an occasional reference to a good dictionary; however, in his later work, he has rid himself of this fault to a great degree, although a use of apt, but unusual, words may be said to be characteristic of his prose."

"There are some men whom a staggering emotional shock, so far from making them mental invalids for life, seems, on the other hand, to awaken, to galvanize, to arouse into an almost incredible activity of soul."