In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered lappets - when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta - there lived a tailor in Gloucester.

The shorter and the plainer the better.

Most people, after one success, are so cringingly afraid of doing less well that they rub all the edge off their subsequent work.

I am worn to a raveling.

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they'll take you.

We cannot stay home all our lives, we must present ourselves to the world and we must look upon it as an adventure.

I hold an old-fashioned notion that a happy marriage is the crown of a woman’s life.