Life never gives us what we want at the moment that we consider appropriate.

Hardship is vanishing, but so is style, and the two are more closely connected than the present generation supposes.

At night, when the curtains are drawn and the fire flickers, my books attain a collective dignity.

Intuition attracts those who wish to be spiritual without any bother, because it promises a heaven where the intuitions of others can be ignored.

You want to love everyone equally, and that's worse than impossible--it's wrong.

The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.

The test of a round character is whether it is capable of surprising in a convincing way. If it never surprises it is flat. Flat characters ... in their purest form ... are constructed round a single idea or quality; when there is more than one factor to them, we get the beginning of the curve toward the round. The really flat character can be experessed in one sentence such as, "I will never desert Mr Micawber." There is Mrs Micawber - she says she won't desert Mr Micawber; she doesn't, and there she is.