“The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.” – Joan Cocteau

“Only in men’s imagination does every truth find an effective and undeniable existence. Imagination, not invention, is the supreme master of art as of life.” – Joseph Conrad

“Lock up your libraries if you like; but there is no gate, no lock, no bolt that you can set upon the freedom of my mind.” – Virginia Woolf

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of a void, but out of chaos; the materials must in the first place be afforded; it can give form to dark, shapeless substances, but cannot bring into being the substance itself.” – Mary Shelley

“No tale is so good…but can be spoilt in the telling.” – Terence