Make the short story tremendously succinct - with a very short pulse or rhythm - and the closest selection of detail - in other words summarise intensely and deeply and keep down the lateral development. It should be a little gem of bright, quick, vivid form

When I am wicked I am in high spirits.

...the great merit of the place is that one can arrange one's life here exactly as one pleases...there are facilities for every kind of habit and taste, and everything is accepted and understood.

Don’t underestimate the value of irony—it is extremely valuable.

You must save what you can of your life; you musn't lose it all simply because you've lost a part.

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

She took refuge on the firm ground of fiction, through which indeed there curled the blue river of truth.