“Be polite to all, but intimate with few.”

“Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. True friendship is a plant of slow growth, and must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to appellation. ”

“It is not possible to be intimate with more than very few, because there are only very few in the world with whom we have practically everything in common.”

“Suddenly the thought that the end of her life was imminent shocked him; it was one thing to pity someone he didn't know, quite another to face the same dilemma with someone he knew intimately. That was the trouble with beds. They turned strangers into intimates more quickly than ten years of polite teas in parlours.”

“Anybody who doesn't know that politics is crime has got a few screws loose.”

“All cities have a certain fascination that is lost with too intimate a knowledge.”