I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how could anyone find an intense interest in life? And many do.

I think I am quite wicked with roses. I like to gather them, and smell them till they have no scent left.

The beauty of a lovely woman is like music.

...Though there's reasons in things as nobody knows on---- that's pretty much what I've made out; yet some folks are so wise they'll find you fifty reasons straight off, and all the while the real reason's winking at 'em in the corner, and they niver see't.

A girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth as easily as primitive people imagined the humors of the gods in fair weather. What is she to believe in if not in this vision woven from within?

Sir Joshua would have been glad to take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the historian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the truth of change - only to give stability to one beautiful moment.

The finest language is mostly made up of simple unimposing words.