A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil?
That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.
Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.
To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.
The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.
She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.
And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.
There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.
Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.
Of all needs a book has, the chief need is to be readable.
Above all else, never think you're not good enough.
There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.
Words spoken cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a woman who has spoken a word at once regretted, are far too proud to express that regret.
Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower.
I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.
Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.
One can only pour out of a jug that which is in it.
Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.
Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?
It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything...
In this world things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares.
The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion
Did you ever know a poor man made better by law or a lawyer!' said Bunce bitterly.
For there is no folly so great as keeping one's sorrows hidden.
The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel, because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life, because they are so good.
When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how great becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public.
I like to have a plan," said Mr. Palliser. "And so do I," said his wife,--"if only for the sake of not keeping it.
You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all the days of your life.
