“He could not make them shut-up; they were worse than women. They had not brains enough to be introverted and repressed.”

“Why on earth do adults have to laugh so loudly at everything? Hyena laughs, the women worse than the men—except for the times the men were worse than the women.”

“He hoped she might make some amends for the many very plain faces he was continually passing in the streets. The worst of Bath was the number of its plain women. He did not mean to say there were not pretty women, but the number of the plain was out of all proportion. He had frequently observed, as he walked, that one handsome face would be followed by thirty, or five-and-thirty frights; and once, as he had stood in a shop on Bond street, he had counted eighty-seven women go by, without there being a tolerable face among them. ... But still, there certainly were a dreadful multitude of ugly women in Bath; and as for the men! they were infinitely worse. Such scarecrows as the streets were full of!”

“I had noticed, even then, that there were certain women whom other women instinctively disliked, and that these women invariably had more bait in the water than the women who disliked them.”

“Life could be cruel enough these days without the truth making it worse.”

“When things are at their blackest, I say to myself, 'Cheer up, things could be worse.' And sure enough, they get worse.”