Things were easier for the old novelists who saw people all of a piece. Speaking generally, their heroes were good through and through, their villains wholly bad.

Nothing more predisposes someone in our favour than to let him rob you a little.

Great writers create; writers of smaller gifts copy

Hypocrisy is the most difficult and nerve-racking vice that any man can pursue; it needs an unceasing vigilance and a rare detachment of spirit. It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job.

We have long passed the Victorian Era when asterisks were followed after a certain interval by a baby.

No married man's ever made up his mind until he's heard what his wife has got to say about it.

The day broke grey and dull. The clouds hung heavily, and there was a rawness in the air that suggested snow. A woman servant came into a room in which a child was sleeping and drew the curtains. She glanced mechanically at the house opposite, a stucco house with a portico, and went to the child's bed.