A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.
That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.
Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.
Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.
Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?
A man who desires to soften another man’s heart, should always abuse himself. In softening a woman’s heart, he should abuse her.
I have passed the period of a woman’s life when as a woman she is loved; but I have have not outlived the power of loving.
What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?
What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice!
Of course he had committed forgery; – of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life.
The night was bright with stars, but there was no moon in the heavens, and the gloom of the ivy-coloured church tower was complete. But all the outlines of the place were so well known to him that he could trace them all in the dim light.
These leave-takings in novels are as disagreeable as they are in real life; not so sad, indeed, for they want the reality of sadness; but quite as perplexing, and generally less satisfactory.
I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, no because he has to tell a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist’s first novel will generally have sprung from the right cause.
There was very much in the whole affair of which he would not be proud as he led his bride to the altar; – but a man does not expect to get four thousand pounds a year for nothing.
That fighting of a battle without belief is, I think, the sorriest task which ever falls to the lot of any man.
Never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. People will take you very much at your own reckoning.
The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.
Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.
Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.