“No expectations mean there is no risk of disappointment.”

“I am afraid I shall disappoint people's expectations dreadfully.”

“And what does she mean by love, anyway? People use that word and mean all sorts of things by it.”

“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.”

“I must try to be charitable, Caroline thought: probably she doesn't mean to sound as if she is continually translating from Latin.”

“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.”