Why does Samuel Butler say, 'Wise men never say what they think of women'? Wise men never say anything else apparently.

For we think back through our mothers if we are women.

We are nauseated by the sight of trivial personalities decomposing in the eternity of print.

I begin to long for some little language such as lovers use, broken words, inarticulate words, like the shuffling of feet on pavement.

We do not know our own souls, let alone the souls of others. Human beings do not go hand in hand the whole stretch of the way. There is a virgin forest in each; a snowfield where even the print of birds' feet is unknown. Here we go alone, and like it better so. Always to have sympathy, always to be accompanied, always to be understood would be intolerable.

Talents of the novelist: ... observation of character, analysis of emotion, people's feelings, personal relations.

I prefer men to cauliflowers