Every novelist should write something for children at least once in his lifetime.

In the meantime the groans changed into the protracted, thunderous roar by which all living creatures are struck with terror, and the nerves of people, who do not know what fear is, shake, just as the window-panes rattle from distant cannonading.

Day is like day as two beads in a rosary, unless changes of weather form the only variety.

There is within us a moral instinct which forbids us to rejoice at the death of even an enemy.

The profession of the writer has its thorns about which the reader does not dream.

There is probably no greater idler than myself. And I would consider myself a lazy-bones if I did not write so many volumes, and if I did not admire my diligence once I begin writing.

In the presence of the storm, thunderbolts, hurricane, rain, darkness, and the lions, which might be concealed but a few paces away, he felt disarmed and helpless.