Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that is comes early.

I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not 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.

The true picture of life as it is, if it could be adequately painted, would show men what they are, and how they might rise, not, indeed to perfection, but one step first, and then another on the ladder.

Sometimes you think you have all of tomorrow ahead of you,’ Mama often said. ‘When the sun is shinning, think of the time it won’t be, because even when you’re sitting in your house with the doors shut, misfortune can fall from above.

Poverty, to be picturesque, should be rural. Suburban misery is as hideous as it is pitiable.

Conduct! Is conduct everything? One may conduct oneself excellently, and yet break one's heart.