“People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.”

“The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.”

“Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.”

“How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmaresif there seemed any danger of their coming true!”

“What I like in a good author is not what he says, but what he whispers.”

“What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers.”

“Tell him that riches will not procure for you a single moment of happiness. Luxury consoles poverty alone, and at that only for a short time, until one becomes accustomed to it.”

“Darling, if I think of all I miss now, I will go crazy. I should not think of that. I only want to think of all that I still have, and then I am rich. Your spirit is always around me, in your diary...”

“A little house well filled a little land well tilled and a little wife well willed are great riches.”