Things are always different from what they might be.

The main object of the novel is to represent life. . .The success of a work of art, to my mind, may be measured by the degree to which it produces a certain illusion; that illusion makes it appear to us for the time that we have lived another life - that we have had a miraculous enlargement of experience.

Money's a horrid thing to follow, but a charming thing to meet.

London is on the whole the most possible form of life.

No sovereign, no court, no personal loyalty, no aristocracy, no church, no clergy, no army, no diplomatic service, no country gentlemen, no palaces, no castles, nor manors, nor old country-houses, nor parsonages, nor thatched cottages nor ivied ruins no cathedrals, nor abbeys, nor little Norman churches no great Universities nor public schools -- no Oxford, nor Eton, nor Harrow no literature, no novels, no museums, no pictures, no political society, no sporting class -- no Epsom nor Ascot Some such list as that might be drawn up of the absent things in American life.

If you haven't had your life what have you had?

The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be . . .