Men who can succeed in deceiving no one else, will succeed at last in deceiving themselves.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

When I sit down to write a novel I do not at all know, and I do not very much care, how it is to end.

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.

Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.

A man's mind will very gradually refuse to make itself up until it is driven and compelled by emergency.

I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.