It seems as if an age of genius must be succeeded by an age of endeavour; riot and extravagance by cleanliness and hard work.

To be nothing - is that not, after all, the most satisfactory fact in the whole world?

A sort of transaction went on between them, in which she was on one side, and life was on another, and she was always trying to get the better of it, as it was of her.

I meant to write about death, only life came breaking in as usual

Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.

His eyes were bright, and, indeed, he scarcely knew whether they held dreams or realities...and in five minutes she had filled the shell of the old dream with the flesh of life.

Now the writer, I think, has the chance to live more than other people in the presence of ... reality. It is his business to find it and collect it and communicate it to the rest of us.