A frivolous society can acquire dramatic significance only through what its frivolity destroys.

The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

She had been bored all afternoon by Percy Gryce... but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptibilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.

[I]t's safer to be fond of dangerous people.

After all, one knows one's weak points so well, that it's rather bewildering to have the critics overlook them and invent others.

It is the omnipresent rush of water which give the Este Gardens their peculiar character. From the Anio, drawn up the hillside at incalculable cost and labour, a thousand rills gush downward, terrace by terrace, channeling the stone rails of the balusters, leaping from step to step, dripping into mossy conches, flashing in spray from the horns of sea-gods and the jaws of mythical monsters, or forcing themselves in irrepressible overflow down the ivy-matted banks.

Everything about her was warm and soft and scented; even the stains of her grief became her as raindrops do the beaten rose.