He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears.

you are absolutely the most ethereal, least sensual woman I ever knew to exist without inhuman sexlessness.

Well, what I mean is that I shouldn't mind being a bride at a wedding, if I could be one without having a husband.

This hobble of being alive is rather serious, don’t you think so?

Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.

A woman would rather visit her own grave than the place where she has been young and beautiful after she is aged and ugly.

How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! ...I do not deserve my lot! ...O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!