Booklist
Constructed on a framework of 10 broad categories from "Autobiography/Biography" to "Writing," this book collects more than 1,200 quotations about the craft of writing. The roster of represented writers ranges from Lyman Abbott to Arnold Zweig. Here you will find Benjamin Franklin on autobiography: "The next thing most like living one's life over again seems to be a recollection of that life," and T. S. Eliot on poetry: "The great poet, in writing himself, writes his time." However, you will not find poetry defined by Robert Frost: "A poem . . . begins as a lump in the throat," or Emily Dickinson: "If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry."
Quotations are grouped under the 10 categories in alphabetical order by the author's name. Citations are complete, lacking only page numbers. Entries are numbered consecutively, and those numbers are used in the name and subject indexes. The name index not only indexes authors quoted, but also authors referred to in the quotations as well. The lack of a keyword index is the major drawback in an otherwise well-constructed source. An adequate treatment suitable for most types of library collections.
