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

What is character but the determination of incident? What is incident but the illustration of character?

In museums and palaces we are alternate radicals and conservatives.

I've struck up a tremendous intimacy with Conte Alberto, and we literally can't live without each other. He is the first object my eyes greet in the morning, and the last at night.

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

Take the word for it of a man who has made his way inch by inch, and does not believe that we'll wake up to find our work done because we've lain all night a-dreaming of it; anything worth doing is devilish hard to do!

She is like a revolving lighthouse; pitch darkness alternating with a dazzling brilliancy!