No author can create a character out of nothing. He must have a model to give him a starting point; but then his imagination goes to work, he builds him up, adding a trait here, a trait there, which his model did not possess.

Death is a very dull, dreary affair, and my advice to you is to have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

Never pause unless you have a reason for it, but when you pause, pause as long as you can.

We who are of mature age seldom suspect how unmercifully and yet with what insight the very young judge us.

Most people are such fools that it is really no great compliment to say that someone is above the average.

Freedom! That was the thought that sung in her heart so that even though the future was so dim, it was iridescent like the mist over the river where the morning sun fell upon it. Freedom! Not only freedom from a bond that irked, and a companionship which depressed her; freedom, not only from the death which had threatened, but freedom from the love that had degraded her; freedom from all spiritual ties, the freedom of a disembodied spirit, and with freedom, courage , and a valiant unconcern for whatever was to come.

We find things beautiful because we recognize them and contrariwise we find things beautiful because their novelty surprises us.