It has been my fate in a long life of production to be credited chiefly with the equivocal virtue of industry, a quality so excellent in morals, so little satisfactory in art.

I scarcely remember any writer who has ever ventured to say that the half of the work of the world is actually accomplished by women; and very few husbands who would be otherwise than greatly startled and amazed, if not indignant, if not derisive, at the suggestion of such an idea as that the work of their wives was equal to their own.

Truly there is nothing in the world so blessed or so sweet as the heritage of children.

Laughing is not the first expression of joy. ... A person laughs in idleness, for fun, not for joy. Joy has nothing, nothing but the old way of tears.

Oh, never mind the fashion. When one has a style of one's own, it is always twenty times better.

I think reading a novel is almost next best to having something to do.

Good works may only be beautiful sins, if they are not done in a true spirit.