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

Until the raw ingredients of a pudding make a pudding, I shall never believe that the raw material of sensation and thought can make a work of art without the cook's intervening.

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

And I wonder, among all the tangles of this mortal coil, which one contains tighter knots to undo, & consequently suggests more tugging, & pain, & diversified elements of misery, than the marriage tie.

Little as she was addicted to solitude, there had come to be moments when it seemed a welcome escape from the empty noises of her life.

Life is either always a tight-rope or a featherbed. Give me a tight-rope.

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