I was in a queer mood, thinking myself very old: but now I am a woman again - as I always am when I write.

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

The world is crammed with delightful things

The good diarist writes either for himself alone or for a posterity so distant that it can safely hear every secret and justly weigh every motive. For such an audience there is need neither of affectation nor of restraint. Sincerity is what they ask, detail, and volume; skill with the pen comes in conveniently, but brilliance is not necessary; genius is a hindrance even; and should you know your business and do it manfully, posterity will let you off mixing with great men, reporting famous affairs, or having lain with the first ladies in the land.

Nothing has really happened until it has been recorded.

The human frame being what it is, heart, body and brain all mixed together, and not contained in separate compartments as they will be no doubt in another million years, a good dinner is of great importance to good talk. One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.

Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the power of reflecting the figure of man at twice its natural size.