“There may be something in this theory, but when their amusements are carried to such a point of luxurious and imaginative perfection it certainly gives them great and even unlimited enjoyment at the time.”

She could carry off anything; and some people said that she did.

It is all very well to say that children are happier with mud pies and rag dolls than with these elaborate delights.

Thou canst not serve both cod and salmon.

She suspected him of infidelity, with and without reason, morning, noon and night.

A morbid propensity that causes great suffering in domestic life is often curiously infectious to the very person for whom it creates most suffering.

When I see a cheerful young man shrieking about how full of life he is, banging on a drum, and blowing on a tin trumpet, and speaking of his good spirits

Many women I know think the ideal of happiness is to be in love with a great man, or to be the wife of a great public success; to share his triumph! They forget you share the man as well!

I suggested to Oscar Wilde that he should go a step further than these minor poets; he should publish a book all margin; full of beautiful, unwritten thoughts.

People were not charmed with Eglantine because she herself was charming, but because she was charmed.

Most people now seem to treasure anything they value in proportion to the extent that it’s followed about and surrounded by the vulgar public.

You don’t know a woman until you have had a letter from her.

When a passion is not realized … it fades away, or becomes ideal worship–Dante–Petrarch–that sort of thing!

Modesty is a valuable merit … in people who have no other, and the appearance of it is extremely useful to those who have.

Most people would far rather be seen through than not be seen at all.

There is, of course, no joy so great as the cessation of pain; in fact all joy, active or passive, is the cessation of some pain, since it must be the satisfaction of a longing, even perhaps an unconscious longing.

Suspense is torture … but delightful–or there’d be no gambling in the world.