It is all very wonderful and mysterious, as all life is apt to be if you go a little below the crust, and are not content just to read newspapers and go by the Tube Railway, and buy your clothes ready-made, and think nothing can be true unless it is uninteresting.

Time is, as you are probably aware, merely a convenient fiction. There is no such thing as time.

It is not, Dear, because I am alone, For I am lonelier when the rest are near, But that my place against your heart has grown Too dear to dream of when you are not here.

It is a curious thing that people only ask if you are enjoying yourself when you aren’t.

Then suddenly Jack was a changed boy. Something wonderful had happened to him, and it had made him different. It sometimes happened to people that they see or hear something quite wonderful and then they are never altogether the same again.

It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most astonishing.

It is curious that nearly all the great fortunes are made by turning beautiful things into ugly ones. Making beauty out of ugliness is very ill-paid work.

I’ll plant and water, sow and weed, Till not an inch of earth shows brown, And take a vow of each small seed To grow to greenness and renown: And then some day you’ll pass my way, See gold and crimson, bell and star, And catch my garden’s soul, and say: “How sweet these cottage gardens are!”

Ladylike is the beastliest word there is, I think. If a girl isn’t a lady, it isn’t worth while to be only like one, she’d better let it alone and be a free and happy bounder.

There is nothing more luxurious than eating while you read – unless it be reading while you eat. Amabel did both: they are not the same thing, as you will see if you think the matter over.