autobiography at least saves a man or woman that the world is curious about from the publication of a string of mistakes called 'Memoirs.

It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy: to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self.

It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent - like a carrier pigeon.

Consequences are unpitying.

Surely there was something taught her by this experience of great need; and she must be learning a secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that the less erring could hardly know?

To most mortals there is a stupidity which is unendurable and a stupidity which is altogether acceptable - else, indeed, what would become of social bonds?

I think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always have plenty of music.