One's prime is elusive. You little girls, when you grow up, must be on the alert to recognize your prime at whatever time of your life it may occur. You must then live it to the full.

It's a whydunnit in q-sharp major and it has a message: never talk to the sort of girls that you wouldn't leave lying about in your drawing-room for the servants to pick up.

I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.

It is well, when in difficulties, to say never a word, neither black nor white. Speech is silver but silence is golden.

Art and religion first; then philosophy; lastly science. That is the order of the great subjects of life, that's their order of importance.

[My novel] took up the sweetest part of my mind and the rarest part of my imagination; it was like being in love and better. All day long when I was busy [...], I had my unfinished novel personified almost as a secret companion and accomplice following me like a shadow wherever I went, whatever I did.

There was altogether too much candor in married life; it was an indelicate modern idea, and frequently led to upsets in a household, if not divorce.