I am volatile for one, rigid for another, angular as an icicle in silver, or voluptuous as a candle flame in gold.

... the transaction between a writer and the spirit of the age is one of infinite delicacy, and upon a nice arrangement between the two the whole fortune of his works depend.

Middlemarch, the magnificent book which with all its imperfections is one of the few English novels for grown-up people.

All artists need a room of their own

Tragedies come in the hungry hours.

It's not catastrophes, murders, deaths, diseases, that age and kill us; it's the way people look and laugh, and run up the steps of omnibuses.

Illusions are to the soul what atmosphere is to the earth.