Well, you know when people are no good at anything else they become writers.

A woman will always sacrifice herself if you give her the opportunity. It is her favourite form of self indulgence.

There is only one thing about which I am certain, and this is that there is very little about which one can be certain

Do you absolutely despise me, Walter?" "No." He hesitated and his voice was strange. "I despise myself.

I do not believe they are right who say that the defects of famous men should be ignored. I think it is better that we should know them. Then, though we are conscious of having faults as glaring as theirs, we can believe that that is no hindrance to our achieving also something of their virtues.

I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure--if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

If people waited to know one another before they married, the world wouldn't be as overpopulated as it is now.