“Everyone has something of the spiti that animates the artist”

“A happy marriage- a love match- is something overwhelming, and overpowering.”

“A girl should set her sights on a man who has money; or if not, who can expect to come into money; or if not, who has moneyed connections.”

“It is presumptuous to draw conclusions about a person from what one has heard”

“We are always parting! It's supposed to be sweet sorrow or something, isn't it? Those poets. They'll say anything.”

“So this, Harriet thought, gazing at her black-clad reflection, was what bearing up looked like. The eyes in the mirror stared at her, somehow, while fixing themselves far away.Bearing up, then, must be this: the feeling of perfect frozen stillness, so that to raise your hand was a wrenching and unnatural event. It was not being able to sleep or eat, and the small placid tone in which she heard herself decline the food. It was the presentiment that there must be a crack or a hole somewhere at hand down which she was to throw and extinguish herself, since there must surely be something provided to make this bearable.”

“There can be few places more conducive to the quiet, solitary contemplation of melancholy thoughts than a window-seat; and if beyond the window-panes there is a steely vignette of November murk and withered twigs, so much the better.”