My last page is always latent in my first; but the intervening windings of the way become clear only as I write.

I believe I know the only cure, which is to make one’s center of life inside of one’s self, not selfishly or excludingly, but with a kind of unassailable serenity—to decorate one’s inner house so richly that one is content there, glad to welcome anyone who wants to come and stay, but happy all the same when one is inevitably alone.

whatever the uses of a room, they are seriously interfered with if it be not preserved as a world by itself.

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.

There are moments when a man's imagination, so easily subdued to what it lives in, suddenly rises above its daily level and surveys the long windings of destiny.

We ought to be opening a bottle of wine!

Mrs. Ballinger is one of the ladies who pursue Culture in bands, as though it were dangerous to meet it alone.