I could easily forgive his pride, if he had not mortified mine.

I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.

If the heroine of one novel be not patronized by the heroine of another, from whom can she expect protection and regard?

We are each of an unsocial, taciturn disposition, unwilling to speak, unless we expect to say something that will amaze the whole room, and be handed down to posterity with all the eclat of a proverb.

That is what I like; that is what a young man ought to be. Whatever be his pursuits, his eagerness in them should know no moderation, and leave him no sense of fatigue.

Loss of virtue in a female is irretrievable; that one false step involves her in endless ruin; that her reputation is no less brittle than it is beautiful; and that she cannot be too much guarded in her behaviour towards the undeserving of the other sex.

And you are never to stir out of doors till you can prove that you have spent ten minutes of every day in a rational manner.