“Words are only words”

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

“Society can only hurt if you care for its opinion”

“The glitter of the great world, you know, is only so much froth and spume: you may look in vain for happiness there.”

“I do not say that I could never be persuaded to sacrifice my reputation to passion- only that it would take a great deal.”

“But then she often felt like this lately. The world seemed full of transparent frauds that only she could see through. She was forever shouting from the hustings of honesty, though if any honesty were directed at her she ran from it horrified. And she knew it, laughed at herself for it, wretchedly. She was all to pieces.”

“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.”