Any story, as soon as it is spoken aloud, is a true story.

—JOHN CARSON

Thin-legged, thin-chested, slight unspeakably,

Bold-lipped, rich-tinted, mutable as the sea,

The brown eyes radiant with vivacity—

There shines a brilliant and romantic grace,

A spirit intense and rare, with trace on trace

Of passion, impudence, and energy.

—WILLIAM HENLEY, ON ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

My taste runs to hourglasses, maps, seventeenth-century typefaces, etymologies, the taste of coffee, and the prose of Robert Louis Stevenson.

—JORGE LUIS BORGES

Pure poetic eloquence (colored always, be it remembered, by a strong Scottish accent), grave argument and criticism, riotous streaks of fancy, flashes of nonsense more illuminating than wisdom, streamed from him inexhaustibly as he kindled with delight at the delight of his hearers…’til all of us seemed to catch something of his own gift and inspiration. As long as he was there you kept discovering with delight unexpected powers in yourself.… He was a fellow of infinite and unrestrained jest and yet of infinite earnest, the one very often a mask for the other; a poet, an artist, an adventurer; a man beset by fleshly frailties, and despite his infirm health, of strong appetites and unchecked curiosities; and yet a profoundly sincere moralist.

—SIR SIDNEY COLVIN, ON ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON