The pretty fellows you speak of, I own entertain me sometimes, but is it impossible to be diverted with what one despises? I can laugh at a puppet show, at the same time I know there is nothing in it worth my attention or regard.

We are no more free agents than the queen of clubs when she victoriously takes prisoner the knave of hearts.

Miserable is the fate of writers: if they are agreeable, they are offensive; and if dull, they starve.

Take back the beauty and wit you bestow upon me; leave me my own mediocrity of agreeableness and genius, but leave me also my sincerity, my constancy, and my plain dealing; 'Tis all I have to recommend me to the esteem either of others or myself.

As I approach a second childhood, I endeavor to enter into the pleasures of it.

It was formerly a terrifying view to me that I should one day be an old woman. I now find that Nature has provided pleasures for every state.

Forgive what you can't excuse.