...it strikes me with terror and anguish to feel I absolutely must be torn from you for ever. I see the necessity of departure; and it is like looking on the necessity of death.

I stood lonely enough, but to that feeling of isolation I was accustomed: it did not oppress me much.

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Men, in general, are a sort of scum, very different to anything of which you have an idea.

No reflection was to be allowed now, not one glance was to be cast back; not even one forward. Not one thought was to be given either to the past or the future. The first was a page so heavenly sweet, so deadly sad, that to read one line of it would dissolve my courage and break down my energy. The last was an awful blank, something like then world when the deluge was gone by.

I liked my name pronounced by your lips in a grateful, happy accent.

Nature seemed to me benign and good; I thought she loved me, outcast as I was; and I, who from man could anticipate only mistrust, rejection, insult, clung to her with filial fondness. To-night at least, I would be her guest-as I was her child; my mother would lodge me without money and without price.