“She is a famous artists' model who claims to have been christened Topaz - even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that.”

“Topaz was wonderfully patient - but sometimes I wonder if it is not only patience, but also a faint resemblance to cows.”

“Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me-and I long to mention it myself”

“Oh I daresay she can't help it - she's one of the women who oughn't be loved too kindly when they are some primitive desire for brutality makes them try to provoke it.”

“Was I the only woman in the world who, at my age - and after a lifetime of quite rampant independence - still did not quite feel grown up?”

“While I have been writing I have lived in the past, the light of it has been all around me...”

“But I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.''But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz.”