A ruling passion gives to a shelf of novels the unity of a system.

I have never understood why people who can swallow the enormous improbability of a personal God boggle at a personal Devil.

Of two hearts one is always warm and one is always cold: the cold heart is more precious than diamonds: the warm heart has no value and is thrown away.

Her face looked ugly in the attempt to avoid tears; it was an ugliness which bound him to her more than any beauty could have done. It isn't being happy together, he thought as though it were a fresh discovery, that makes one love--it's being unhappy together.

Innocence always calls mutely for protection when we would be so much wiser to guard ourselves against it: innocence is like a dumb leper who has lost his bell, wandering the world, meaning no harm.

Despair is the price one pays for setting himself an impossible aim.

Pain is easy to write. In pain we're all happily individual. But what can one write about happiness?