Excess is the common substitute for energy.

As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.

Which of us has not been stunned by the beauty of an animal's skin or its flexibility in motion?

The Irish say your trouble is their trouble and your joy their joy? I wish I could believe it; I am troubled, I'm dissatisfied, I'm Irish.

[On her use of quotations:] When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said better, why paraphrase it? Hence my writing, is, if not a cabinet of fossils, a kind of collection of flies in amber.

We don't like flowers that do not wilt; they must die, and nine she-camel hairs aid memory.

Wolf's wool is the best of wool, / but it cannot be sheared because / the wolf will not comply.