“Always be civil to the girls, you never know who they may marry' is a aphorism which has saved many an English spinster from being treated like an Indian widow.”

“The way she told it, the English counties are littered with aging spinsters who accidentally displayed a spark of intelligence at a debutante dance and were banished forever from civilized society”

“To marry a girl just to make her a widow,” said Gabriel Lightwood. “Many would say that was not a kindness.”

“We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.”

“Will you marry me, vile and abominable girl that you are?Yes, but, mind, it only to save my neck from being wrung!”

“You may be married to a star, but that doesn't mean they'll treat you like one.”