Brander Matthews Quotes

#1. The art of the dramatist is very like the art of the architect. A plot has to be built up just as a house is built-story after story; and no edifice has any chance of standing unless it has a broad foundation and a solid frame.

Brander Matthews

#2. To be clear is the first duty of a writer; to charm and to please are graces to be acquired later.

Brander Matthews

#3. Be brief, be buoyant, and be brilliant.

Brander Matthews

#4. When I have no idea, I gnaw my nails and invoke the aid of Providence.

Brander Matthews

#5. A gentleman need not know Latin, but he should at least have forgotten it.

Brander Matthews

#6. Give a good deed the credit of a good motive; and give an evil deed the benefit of the doubt.

Brander Matthews

#7. A highbrow is a person educated beyond his intelligence.

Brander Matthews

#8. In every artist we can perceive a man with both a message and a method. His message may be innate in him, but his method he has to acquire from others.

Brander Matthews

#9. There is a homely directness about these rustic apothegms which makes them far more palatable than the strained and sophisticated epigrams of the characters of Oscar Wilde's plays, who are ever striving strenuously to dazzle us with verbal pyrotechnics.

Brander Matthews