No one of the characters in my novels has originated, so far as I know, in real life. If anything, the contrary was the case: persons playing a part in my life--the first twenty years of it--had about them something semi-fictitious.

Sins cut boldly up through every class in society, but mere misdemeanours show a certain level in life.

What is being said is the effect of something that has happened; at the same time, what is being said is in itself something happening, which will, in turn, leave its effect.

The importance to the writer of first writing must be out of all proportion of the actual value of what is written.

rudeness to Mrs. Dosely was like dropping a pat of butter on to a hot plate - it slid and melted away.

... love dreads being isolated, being left to speak in a void -- at the beginning it would often rather listen than speak.

The heart may think it knows better: the senses know that absence blots people out. We really have no absent friends.