The true defense against wealth is not a fear of wealth - of its fragility and of the vicious consequences that it can bring - the true defense against wealth is an indifference to money.

As far as the education of children is concerned I think they should be taught not the little virtues but the great ones. Not thrift but generosity and an indifference to money; not caution but courage and a contempt for danger; not shrewdness but frankness and a love of truth; not tact but love for one's neighbor and self-denial; not a desire for success but a desire to be and to know.

When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.

But that was the best time of my life, and only now that it has gone from me forever -- only now do I realize it.

England is a country where people stay exactly as they are. The soul does not receive the slightest jolt.

I think of a writer as a river: you reflect what passes before you.

My tidiness, and my untidiness, are full of regret and remorse and complex feelings.