Surely she had endured enough for one evening without having to listen to intelligent conversation?

She liked Victorian novels. They were the only kind of novel you could read while eating an apple.

On the whole, Flora liked it better when they were silent, though it did rather give her the feeling that she was acting in one of the less cheerful German highbrow films.

The life of a journalist is poor, nasty, brutish, and short. So is his style

He was, she reflected, almost rudely like a tortoise; and she was glad her friend kept none as pets or they might have suspected mockery.

One of the disadvantages of almost universal education was the fact that all kinds of persons acquired a familiarity with one's favorite writers. It gave one a curious feeling; it was like seeing a drunken stranger wrapped in one's dressing gown.

There are some things (like first love and one’s first reviews) at which a woman in her middle years does not care to look too closely.