The only reason for the existence of a novel is that it does attempt to represent life.

A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see--that’s my idea of happiness.

There are women who are for all your 'times of life.' They're the most wonderful sort.

It is indeed immensely picturesque. I can fancy sitting all a summer's day watching its shadows shorten and lengthen again, and drawing a delicious contrast between the world's duration and the feeble span of individual experience. There is something in Stonehenge almost reassuring; and if you are disposed to feel that life is rather a superficial matter, and that we soon get to the bottom of things, the immemorial gray pillars may serve to remind you of the enormous background of time.

Am I solemn? I had an idea I was grinning from ear to ear." "You look as if you were taking me to a prayer-meeting or a funeral. If that's a grin your ears are very near together." "Should you like me to dance a hornpipe on the deck?" "Pray do, and I'll carry round your hat. It'll pay the expenses of our journey.

To kill a human being is, after all, the least injury you can do him.

It's time to start living the life you've imagined.