Though I have no productive worth, I have a certain value as an indestructible quantity.

The gain isn't counted to the recluse and inactive that, having nothing to measure themselves by and never being tested by failure, they simmer and soak perpetually in conscious complacency.

I think that if I get into the habit of writing a bit about what happens, or rather doesn't happen, I may lose a little of the sense of isolation and desolation which abides with me. My circumstances allowing of nothing but the ejaculation of one-syllabled reflections, a written monologue by that most interesting being, myself, may have its yet to be discovered consolations.

The success or failure of a life, as far as posterity goes, seems to lie in the more or less luck of seizing the right moment of escape

Physical pain however great ends in itself and falls away like dry husks from the mind, whilst moral discords and nervous horrors sear the soul.

You must remember that a woman, by nature, needs much less to feed upon than a man, a few emotions and she is satisfied.

What one reads, or rather all that comes to us, is surely only of interest and value in proportion as we find ourselves therein, -- form given to what was vague, what slumbered stirred to life.