Lovely female shapes are terrible complicators of the difficulties and dangers of this earthly life, especially for their owners.

An apple is an excellent thing -- until you have tried a peach.

The wretcheder one is, the more one smokes; and the more one smokes, the wretcheder one gets-a vicious circle.

Sick I am of idle words, past all reconciling, Words that weary and perplex and pander and conceal, Wake the sounds that cannot lie, for all their sweet beguiling; The language one need fathom not, but only hear and feel.

Life ain't all beer and skittles, and more's the pity; but what's the odds, so long as you're happy?

I doubt if Dickens did, especially his women-his pretty women-Mrs. Dombey, Florence, Dora, Agnes, Ruth Pinch, Kate Nickleby, little Emily-we know them all through Hablot Browne alone-and none of them present any very marked physical characteristics. They are sweet and graceful, neither tall nor short; they have a pretty droop in their shoulders, and are very ladylike; sometimes they wear ringlets, sometimes not, and each would do very easily for the other.

Happiness is like time and space-we make and measure it ourselves; it is as fancy, as big, as little, as you please, just a thing of contrasts and comparisons.