Quote: How frail and ephemeral is the material substance of letters, which makes their very survival so hazardous. Print has a permanence of its own, though it may not be much worth preserving, but a letter! Conveyed by uncertain transportation, over which the sender has no control; committed to a single individual who may be careless or inappreciative; left to the mercy of future generations, of families maybe anxious to suppress the past, of the accidents of removals and house-cleanings, or of mere ignorance. How often it has been by the veriest chance that they have survived at all. [Elizabeth Drew]
Quote: The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it. [Elizabeth Drew]
Quote: We read poetry because the poets, like ourselves, have been haunted by the inescapable tyranny of time and death; have suffered the pain of loss, and the more wearing, continuous pain of frustration and failure; and have had moods of unlooked-for release and peace. They have known and watched in themselves and others. [Elizabeth Drew]
Quote: The torment of human frustration, whatever its immediate cause, is the knowledge that the self is in prison, its vital force and mangled mind leaking away in lonely, wasteful self-conflict. [Elizabeth Drew]
Quote: The inspired scribbler always has the gift for gossip in our common usage he or she can always inspire the commonplace with an uncommon flavor, and transform trivialities by some original grace or sympathy or humor or affection. [Elizabeth Drew]