“But it was the stupidity of passion, which would rather have nothing than a little.”

“I suggest that the only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little further down our particular path than we have yet gone ourselves.”

“I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.”

“It happened like this, if it happened at all. I would rather go up to heaven by myself than be pushed by cherubs.”

“I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.”

“Every little trifle, for some reason, does seem incalculably important today, and when you say of a thing that 'nothing hangs on it,' it sounds like blasphemy. There's never any knowing—(how am I to put it?)—which of our actions, which of our idlenesses won't have things hanging on it for ever.”

“The affections are more reticent than the passions, and their expression more subtle.”