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 need silence, and to be alone and to go out, and to save one hour to consider what has happened to my world, what death has done to my world.

This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.

The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantelpiece forever.

The word-coining genius, as if thought plunged into a sea of words and came up dripping.

I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them.

After all, what is a lovely phrase? One that has mopped up as much Truth as it can hold.