The other producer of old age is habit: the deathly process of doing the same thing in the same way at the same hour day after day, first from carelessness, then from inclination, at last from cowardice or inertia. Luckily the inconsequent life is not the only alternative; for caprice is as ruinous as routine. Habit is necessary; it is the habit of having habits, of turning a trail into a rut, that must be incessantly fought against if one is to remain alive.

Charity, till then, had been conscious only of a vague self-disgust and a frightening physical distress; now, of a sudden, there came to her the grave surprise of motherhood.

The difference is that these young people take it for granted that they're going to get whatever they want, and that we almost always took it for granted that we shouldn't. Only, I wonder—the thing one's so certain of in advance: can it ever make one's heart beat as wildly?

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

Misfortune had made Lily supple instead of hardening her, and a pliable substance is less easy to break than a stiff one.

When a man says he doesn't understand a woman it's because he won't take the trouble.

Yes, one gets over things. But there are certain memories one can't bit on.