“At forty my faculties may have closed up like flowers at evening, leaving me unable to write my memoirs with a fitting and discreet inaccuracy, or, having written them, unable to carry them to the publisher.”

“There are some with whom we may study in common, but we shall find them unable to go along with us to principles. Perhaps we may go on with them to principles, but we shall find them unable to get established in those along with us. Or if we may get so established along with them, we shall find them unable to weigh occurring events along with us.”

“Some people have written that my writing has helped them go on.It has helped me too. The writing, the roses, the 9 cats.”

“My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone.”

“single people without children have a "childish sensitivity and are unwilling or unable to compromise or fit in”

“Most of us have small, sad places somewhere in our hearts and my father was no exception. Sometimes we let our feelings escape in bursts of anger. Sometimes we make long, dismal faces. My father did neither. He felt deeply but he kept his feelings to himself. Or rather, being a writer, he let them escape in his writing. But even here he disguised them, unable even in fiction to allow himself to take himself too seriously.”