Eric Byrd

“I always went alone to the palaces where collections of pictures and statues were exhibited, so as not to have my enjoyment spoiled by stupid remarks or questions. All these palaces are open to strangers, and much gratitude is due to the great Roman nobles for being so obliging. It may seem hard to believe, but it is true that one might spend one's whole life in palaces and churches.”
― Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

“Then Montesquieu was mentioned, and somebody described his first love-affair, a Baudelairean love-affair with a female ventriloquist who, while Montesquieu was straining to achieve his climax, would imitate the drunken voice of a pimp, threatening the aristocratic client.”
― Edmond de Goncourt, Pages from the Goncourt Journals

“As I understand it, and as you allow me to practice it, criticism is, like philosophy and history, a sort of romance designed for those who have sagacious and curious minds, and every romance is, rightly taken, a sort of autobiography. The good critic is he who relates the adventures of his soul among masterpieces.”
― Anatole France, ON LIFE & LETTERS

“I think you will come to Balzac yet. When one has disproved all one’s theories, outgrown all of one’s standards, discarded all one’s criterions, and left off minding about one’s appearance, one comes to Balzac. And there he is, waiting outside his canvas tent—with such a circus going on inside.”
― Sylvia Townsend Warner, The Element of Lavishness: Letters of Sylvia Townsend Warner & William Maxwell, 1938-1978