“Esther always avoided asking questions of Lydley, who found an answer as she found a key, by pouring out a pocketful of miscellanies.”

“Her future, she thought, was likely to be worse than her past, for after her years of contented renunciation, she had slipped back into desire and longing; she found joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder; she found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for, and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate.”

“Animals are such agreeable friends―they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”

“If you deliver an opinion at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of conviction and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in uttering it, and naturally get fond of it.”

“Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them afterwards to her husband, and asking him if she had not spoken very properly.”

“All meanings, we know, depend on the key of interpretation.”

“She felt that she enjoyed it [horseback riding] in a pagan, sensuous way, and always looked forward to renouncing it.”