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

The great advantage of being a writer is that you can spy on people. You're there, listening to every word, but part of you is observing. Everything is useful to a writer, you see - every scrap, even the longest and most boring of luncheon parties.

I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard of course she could not love me at all.

Innocence is a kind of insanity

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

Would the world be in the mess it is if we were loyal to love and not to countries?

So long as one is happy one can endure any discipline: it was unhappiness that broke down the habits of work.