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.

There's nothing grimmer than the tragedy that wears a comic mask.

The only thing to do is to hug one's friends tight and do one's job.

Ah, good conversation - there's nothing like it, is there? The air of ideas is the only air worth breathing.

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

Their long years together had shown him that it did not so much matter if marriage was a dull duty, as long as it kept the dignity of duty: lapsing from that, it became a mere battle of ugly appetites.

Mothers and daughters are part of each other's consciousness, in different degrees and in a different way, but still with the mutual sense of something which has always been there. A real mother is just a habit of thought to her children.