Autobiography may be the preeminent kind of American expression.

..her smile, which was her pretty feature, was never so pretty as when her sprightly phrase had a scratch lurking in it.

I have in my own fashion learned the lesson that life is effort, unremittingly repeated.

I am blackly bored when they are at large and at work; but somehow I am still more blackly bored when they are shut up in Holloway and we are deprived of them.

In the long run an opinion often borrows credit from the forbearance of its patrons.

Don't try so much to form your character - it's like trying to pull open a tight, tender young rose. Live as you like best and your character will take care of itself.

You think too much.' 'I suppose I do; but I can’t help it, my mind is so terribly active. When I give myself, I give myself. I pay the penalty in my headaches, my famous headaches--a perfect circlet of pain! But I carry it as a queen carries her crown.