I say what other people only think, and when all the rest of the world is in a conspiracy to accept the mask for the true face, mine is the rash hand that tears off the plump pasteboard and shows the bare bones beneath.

Any woman who is sure of her own wits, is a match, at any time, for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

The future of English fiction may rest with this Unknown Public - a reading public of three millions which lies right out of the pale of true literary civilization - which is now waiting to be taught the difference between a good book and a bad.

I sadly want a reform in the construction of children. Nature's only idea seems to be to make them machines for the production of incessant noise.

And earth was heaven a little the worse for wear. And heaven was earth, done up again to look like new.

I am an average good Christian, when you don't push my Christianity too far. And all the rest of you—which is a great comfort—are, in this respect, much the same as I am.

I have noticed that the Christianity of a certain class of respectable people begins when they open their prayer-books at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and ends when they shut them up again at one o'clock on Sunday afternoon. Nothing so astonishes and insults Christians of this sort as reminding them of their Christianity on a week-day.