From the point of view of literature Mr. Kipling is a genius who drops his aspirates. From the point of view of life, he is a reporter who knows vulgarity better than any one has ever known it.
We who preach and write, do so in a manner different from which the Scriptures have been written. We write while we make progress.We learn something new every day. We speak as we still knock for understanding...If anyone criticizes me when I have said what is right, he does me an injustice. But I would be more angry with the one who praises me and takes what I have written for Gospel truth than I would be with the one who criticizes me unfairly.
I conceive that the right way to write a story for boys is to write so that it will not only interest boys but strongly interest any man who has ever been a boy. That immensely enlarges the audience.
Everybody is writing, writing, writing - worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers - every damned one of us - were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work.
Just as I cannot remember any time when I could not read and write, I cannot remember any time when I did not exercise my imagination in daydreams about women.
Writings survive the years; it is by writings that you know Agamemnon, and those who fought for or against him.
[Lat., Scripta ferunt annos; scriptis Agamemnona nosti,
Et quisquis contra vel simul arma tulit.]
Fame, money and the size of the market are not very important to me. What is, is writing a book that is worth doing and then publishing it. I don't write books for entertainment, for people to pass the time then throw away.