“I like books whose virtue is all drawn together in a page or two. I like sentences that don't budge though armies cross them. ”

“What's the use trying to read Shakespeare, especially in one of those little paper editions whose pages get ruffled, or stuck together with sea-water?”

“Like most uneducated Englishwomen, I like reading--I like reading books in the bulk.”

“Really I don't like human nature unless all candied over with art”

“...but after reading a chapter or two a shadow seemed to lie across the page. It was a straight dark bar, a shadow shaped something like the letter 'I.' One began dodging this way and that to catch a glimpse of the landscape behind it. Whether that was indeed a tree or a woman walking I was not quite sure. Back one was always hailed to the letter 'I.”

“I like people to be unhappy because I like them to have souls.”

“When I am grown up I shall carry a notebook—a fat book with many pages, methodically lettered. I shall enter my phrases.”