What has a writer to be ...

What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.
What has a writer to be bombastic about? Whatever good a man may write is the consequence of accident, luck, or surprise, and nobody is more surprised than an honest writer when he makes a good phrase or says something truthful.
 Edward Dahlberg

More phrases

If a man watches three football games in a row, he should be declared legally dead.
The truth is not for all men, but only for those who seek it.
A man must be big enough to admit his mistakes, smart enough to profit from them, and strong enough to correct them.
Each man has his own vocation; his talent is his call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him.
The superior man is modest in his speech but exceeds in his actions.

Quotes from the same author

We are ruled by chance but never have enough patience to accept its despotism.
 Edward Dahlberg
Though man is the only beast that can write, he has small reason to be proud of it. When he utters something that is wise it is nothing that the river horse does not know, and most of his creations are the result of accident.
 Edward Dahlberg
Man is at the nadir of his stregth when the Earth, the seas, the mountains are not in him, for without them his soul is unsourced, and he has no images by which to abide.
 Edward Dahlberg
Everything ultimately fails, for we die, and that is either the penultimate failure or our most enigmatical achievement.
 Edward Dahlberg
Men are mad most of their lives; few live sane, fewer die so. The acts of people are baffling unless we realize that their wits are disordered. Man is driven to justice by his lunacy.
 Edward Dahlberg