“but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

“[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.”

“I . . . am always half afraid of finding a clever novel too clever--& of finding my own story & my own people all forestalled.”

“No, indeed, I shall grant you nothing. I always take the part of my own sex. I do indeed. I give you notice-- You will find me a formidable antagonist on that point. I always stand up for women.”

“I do not think I ever opened a book in my life which had not something to say upon woman's inconstancy. Songs and proverbs, all talk of woman's fickleness. But perhaps you will say, these were all written by men.""Perhaps I shall. Yes, yes, if you please, no reference to examples in books. Men have had every advantage of us in telling their own story. Education has been theirs in so much higher a degree; the pen has been in their hands. I will not allow books to prove anything.”

“No- I cannot talk of books in a ballroom; my head is always full of something else.”

“It is only by seeing women in their own homes, among their own set, just as they always are, that you can form any just judgment. Short of that, it is all guess and luck—and will generally be ill-luck. How many a man has committed himself on a short acquaintance, and rued it all the rest of his life!”