Nobody has any conscience about adding to the improbabilities of a marvelous tale.

A man's bewilderment is the measure of his wisdom.

Romance and poetry, ivy, lichens and wallflowers need ruin to make them grow.

We sometimes congratulate ourselves at the moment of waking from a troubled dream; it may be so the moment after death.

This above all: be true, be true, be true.

...and we have so far improved upon the custom of Adam and Eve, that we generally furnish forth our feasts with a portion of some delicate calf or lamb, whose unspotted innocence entitles them to the happiness of becoming our sustenance.

No author, without a trial, can conceive of the difficulty of writing a romance about a country where there is no shadow, no antiquity, no mystery, no picturesque and gloomy wrong, nor anything but a commonplace prosperity, in broad and simple daylight, as is happily the case with my dear native land.