I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.

The Portrait of a Lady is entirely successful in giving one the sense of having met somebody far too radiantly good for this world.

The French use cooking as a means of self-expression, and this meal perfectly represented the personality of a cook who had spent the morning resting her unwashed chin on the edge of a tureen, pondering whether she should end her life immediately by plunging her head into her abominable soup.

I had a glorious father, I had no father at all.

It is always one's virtues and not one's vices that precipitate one into disaster.

There is nothing rarer than a man who can be trusted never to throw away happiness, however eagerly he sometimes grasps it. In history we are as frequently interested in our own doom.

He is every other inch a gentleman.