What are novels? What is the secret of the charm of every romance that ever was written? The first thing in a good novel is to place the persons together in circumstances which naturally call out the high feelings and thoughts of the character, which afford food for sympathy between them on these points - romantic events they are called. The second is that the heroine has generally no family ties (almost invariably no mother), or, if she has, these do not interfere with her entire independence. These two things constitute the main charm of reading novels.

By mortifying vanity we do ourselves no good. It is the want of interest in our life which produces it; by filling up that want of interest in our life we can …

Give us back our suffering, we cry to Heaven in our hearts - suffering rather than indifferentism; for out of nothing comes nothing. But out of suffering may c…

Suffering, sad 'female humanity!' What are these feelings which they are taught to consider as disgraceful, to deny to themselves? What form do the Chinese fee…

I can't think of any one film that improved on a good novel, but I can think of many good films that came from very bad novels.

Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her time in looking for a man's footprint.

A humbly poetic, gently clownlike, supremely innocent, and illimitably affectionate creature (slightly resembling a child's drawing of a cat, but gifted with t…