In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible.

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

The dearest things in the world are our neighbor's eyes; they cost everybody more than anything else in housekeeping