Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel.

Serenity of spirit and turbulence of action should make up the sum of a man's life.

Summer makes a silence after spring.

[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.

To hope for Paradise is to live in Paradise, a very different thing from actually getting there.

Women, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.

I suppose the pleasure of country life lies really in the eternally renewed evidences of the determination to live.