“A living dog's better than a dead lion.”

“Rich women live at such a distance from life that very often they never see their money — the Queen, they say, for instance, never carries a purse.”

“I don't know what's come over this place,' Maud stated. 'However, the Lord did, so in despair He showed me what I had better do.' 'And did the Lord suggest your sticking up your father for ten shillings?' 'No, I thought of that,' said Maud, not turning a hair.”

“A romantic man often feels more uplifted with two women than with one: his love seems to hit the ideal mark somewhere between two different faces.”

“Spezia offered Leopold almost nothing: his precocity devoured itself there, rejecting the steep sunny coast and nibbling blue edge of the sea that had drowned Shelley. His spirit became crustacean under douches of culture and mild philosophic chat from his Uncle Dee, who was cultured rather than erudite.”

“I swear that each of us keeps, battened down inside himself, a sort of lunatic giant - impossible socially, but full-scale - and that it's the knockings and baterrings we sometimes hear in each other that keeps our intercourse from utter banaility.”

“Reason can never reconcile one to life: nothing allays the wants one cannot explain.”