One should, I think, always give children money, for they will spend it for themselves far more profitably than we can ever spend it for them.

Each wrong act brings with it its own anesthetic, dulling the conscience and blinding it against further light, and sometimes for years.

Traveling together is a great test, which has damaged many friendships and even honeymoons, and some people such as [Thomas] Gray and Horace Walpole, never feel quite the same to one another again, and it is nobody's fault, as one knows if one listens to the stories of both, though it seems to be some people's fault more than others.

When I have eaten mangoes, I have felt like Eve.

Publishers of course have you altogether in their grip; if they say you must do a thing you have jolly well got to do it.

At the worst, a house unkept cannot be so distressing as a life unlived.

Cruelty was the devil, and most people were, in one way or another, cruel. Tyranny, suppression, persecution, torture, slavery, war, neglect - all were cruel. The world was acid and sour with hate, fat with greed, yellow with the triumph of the strong and the rich.