I had the story, bit by bit, from various people, and, as generally happens in such cases, each time it was a different story.

It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.

The worst of doing one's duty was that it apparently unfitted one for doing anything else.

It is almost as stupid to let your clothes betray that you know you are ugly as to have them proclaim that you think you are beautiful.

She was so evidently the victim of the civilization which had produced her, that the links of her bracelet seemed like manacles chaining her to her fate.

And all the while, I suppose," he thought, "real people were living somewhere, and real things happening to them.

I have never known a novel that was good enough to be good in spite of its being adapted to the author's political views.