“We're human beings we are - all of us - and that's what people are liable to forget. Human beings don't like peace and goodwill and everybody loving everybody else. However much they may think they do, they don't really because they're not made like that. Human beings love eating and drinking and loving and hating. They also like showing off, grabbing all they can, fighting for their rights and bossing anybody who'll give them half a chance.”

“Oh that. Men do fall in love with me. They seem to think me a creature with volcanic passions; I'm sure I don't know why. All the volcanic women I know are plain little creatures with sandy hair. I don't consider human volcanoes respectable. And I'm so tired of the subject. Our house is always full of women in love with my husband and men in love with me. We encourage it because it's pleasant to have company.”

“Everybody has choices, Mother. The poorest girl alive may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she can choose between rag-picking and flower-selling, according to her taste. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them.”

“A pessimist is a man who thinks everybody is as nasty as himself, and hates them for it.”

“Wicked people means people who have no love: therefore, they have no shame. They have the power to ask love because the don't need it: they have the power to offer it because they have none to give.”

“You may remember that on earth—though of course we never confessed it—the death of anyone we knew, even those we liked best, was always mingled with a certain satisfaction at being finally done with them.”

“Only on paper has humanity yet achieved glory, beauty, truth, knowledge, virtue, and abiding love.”