It isn't possible to love and part. You will wish that it was. You can transmute love, ignore it, muddle it, but you can never pull it out of you. I know by experience that the poets are right: love is eternal.

The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot.

It comes to this then: there always have been people like me and always will be, and generally they have been persecuted.

For you cannot have gentility without paying for it.

We cast a shadow on something wherever we stand, and it is no good moving from place to place to save things; because the shadow always follows. Choose a place where you won't do harm - yes, choose a place where you won't do very much harm, and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.

As her time in Florence drew to a close she was only at ease amongst those to whom she felt indifferent.

Human beings have their great chance in the novel.