Nearly all novels are too long.

You should always believe what you read in the newspapers, for that makes them more interesting.

I can think of few things more disastrous than starting a new correspondence with any one. Letters are a burden indeed ... they seem often the last straw that breaks the back ... you should see the piles of those that I must answer that litter and weight my writing table.

Why is humanity so excessive in the way it does things? The golden mean seems out of fashion.

One could do with a longer year - so much to do, so little done, alas.

miss my daily Mass, and have a superstitious feeling that anything may happen on the days I don't go. However, nothing in particular has.

It is to the eccentrics that the world owes most of its knowledge.