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

Any rapidly enacted episode. . .should be seen through only one pair of eyes.

She had no tolerance for scenes which were not of her own making.

Society soon grows used to any state of things which is imposed upon it without explanation.

A classic is classic not because it conforms to certain structural rules, or fits certain definitions (of which its author had quite probably never heard). It is classic because of a certain eternal and irrepressible freshness.

Is there nowhere in an American house where one may be by one's self?

What is one's personality, detached from that of the friends with whom fate happens to have linked one? I cannot think of myself apart from the influence of the two or three greatest friendships of my life, and any account of my own growth must be that of their stimulating and enlightening influence.