Ah, Sir, a novel is a mirror carried along a high road. At one moment it reflects to your vision the azure skies, at another the mire of the puddles at your feet. And the man who carries this mirror in his pack will be accused by you of being immoral! His mirror shews the mire, and you blame the mirror! Rather blame that high road upon which the puddle lies, still more the inspector of roads who allows the water to gather and the puddle to form.

It is not enough for a landscape to be interesting in itself. Eventually there must be a moral and historic interest.

Pleasure is often spoiled by describing it.

It is the nobility of their style which will make our writers of 1840 unreadable forty years from now.

A forty-year-old woman is only something to men who have loved her in her youth.

If you don't love me, it does not matter, anyway I can love for both of us.

On a cold winter morning a cigar fortifies the soul.