Being moderate with oneself and generous with others; this is what is meant by having a just relationship with money, by being free as far as money is concerned.

But the English do not know what surprise is. No one ever turns his head to look at anyone else in the street.

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.

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.

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.

I begin to suspect that England is the most melancholy country in the world.