love of truth, ordinary common truth recognizable to everyone, is the ruling passion of the novel.

Venice, as a city, was a foundling, floating upon the waters like Moses in his basket among the bulrushes.

The suspense in a novel is not only in the reader, but in the novelist himself, who is intensely curious too about what will happen to the hero.

Liberty, as it is conceived by current opinion, has nothing inherent about it; it is a sort of gift or trust bestowed on the individual by the state pending good behavior.

Being abroad makes you conscious of the whole imitative side of human behavior. The ape in man.

For both writer and reader, the novel is a lonely, physically inactive affair. Only the imagination races.

The passion for fact in a raw state is a peculiarity of the novelist.