I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be, written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.

I wished to tell the truth, for truth always conveys its own moral to those who are able to receive it.

Keep both heart and hand in your own possession, till you see good reason to part with them.

If we can only speak to slander our betters, let us hold our tongues.

If the generous ideas of youth are too often over- clouded by the sordid views of after-life, that scarcely proves them to be false

Adieu! but let me cherish, still, The hope with which I cannot part. Contempt may wound, and coldness chill, But still it lingers in my heart. And who can tell but Heaven, at last, May answer all my thousand prayers, And bid the future pay the past With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?

I began this book with the intention of concealing nothing, that those who liked might have the benefit of perusing a fellow creature's heart: but we have some thoughts that all the angels in heaven are welcome to behold -- but not our brother-men -- not even the best and kindest amongst them.