A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

No fear of forgetting the good-humoured faces that meet us in our walks each day.

There is no running away from a great grief.

I do not think very highly of Madame D'Arblay's books. The style is so strutting. She does so stalk about on Dr. Johnson's old stilts.

Our English people are much addicted to raising idols, and then revenging themselves on their own idolatry by knocking down and demolishing the poor bits of wood and stone that they had worshipped as gods. How many literary reputations have been so treated!

[On Elizabeth Barrett Browning:] Her sweetness of character is even beyond her genius.

Enthusiasm is very catching, especially when it is very eloquent.