One can't judge till one's forty; before that we're too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.

We trust to novels to train us in the practice of great indignations and great generosity.

Make him [the reader] think the evil, make him think it for himself, and you are released from weak specifications.

She had a certain way of looking at life which he took as a personal offense.

The visible world is but man turned inside out that he may be revealed to himself.

Excellence does not require perfection.

You wanted to look at life for yourself - but you were not allowed; you were punished for your wish. You were ground in the very mill of the conventional.