“Her failure was a useful preliminary to success.”

“She felt a stealing sense of fatigue as she walked; the sparkle had died out of her, and the taste of life was stale on her lips. She hardly knew what she had been seeking, or why the failure to find it had so blotted the light from her sky: she was only aware of a vague sense of failure, of an inner isolation deeper than the loneliness about her.”

“Genius is of small use to a woman who does not know how to do her hair.”

“She had been bored all afternoon by Percy Gryce... but she could not ignore him on the morrow, she must follow up her success, must submit to more boredom, must be ready with fresh compliances and adaptibilities, and all on the bare chance that he might ultimately decide to do her the honour of boring her for life.”

“Beauty (was)a gift which, in the eyes of New York, justified every success, and excused a certain number of failings.”

“You are an artist and I happen to be the bit of color you are using today.”

“There was no use in trying to emancipate a wife who had not the dimmest notion that she was not free.”