The plot is not very important to me, though a novel must have one, of course. It's just a line to hang the washing on.

What concerns anyone so much as the time he has to live?

I wonder the human race has been so fond of migrations, when the young take so hardly to traveling.

Parents have too little respect for their children, just as the children have too much for the parents.

Real charity and real ability never to condemn-the one real virtue-is so often the result of a waking experience that gives a glimpse of what lies beneath things.

Duty is seldom liked either by the doer or the object ... And why should it be? It is not often of advantage to either.

Most of the pleasure of making a book would go if it held nothing to be shared by other people. I would write for a few dozen people, and sometimes it seems that I do so, but I would not write for no-one.