Easy enough to dismiss others' problems when you had none of your own.

You would not think that birds who have no brain at all could become so friendly. I swear some of them are more intelligent than many humans, but that says more about our fellow beings than it does about the birds.

People make one happy, not houses? I do not think so. Houses are more to be trusted than people.

The trouble with lies was that once started, the fiction had to be continued, and it was hard always to be remembering details that you had made up upon the spur of the moment.

Clergymen have much the same in their breeches as other men.

One remembers horrors, I think, for the rest of one's life, but memories do not always remain so sharp, and with time, and new circumstance, do not affect us so powerfully.

We have to have the money to do the work we want to do, as well as to keep a roof over our heads and food on the table. Fat commissions are good, but not always easy to come by, and each new painting takes its time. So we need to find every way possible to earn extra income from our work.