“Fiction is like a spider's web, attached ever so lightly perhaps, but still attached to life at all four corners. Often the attachment is scarcely perceptible; Shakespeare's plays, for instance, seem to hang there complete by themselves. But when the web is pulled askew, hooked up at the edge, torn in the middle, one remembers that these webs are not spun in midair by incorporeal creatures, but are the work of suffering human beings, and are attached to the grossly material things, like health and money and the houses we live in.”

“What a lark! What a plunge!”

“How lovely goodness is in those who, stepping lightly, go smiling through the world.”

“In marriage a little licence, a little independence there must be between people living together day in and day out in the same house.”

“The mind must be allowed to settle undisturbed over the object in order to secrete the pearl.”

“The most destitute person in the world is the one without a smile.”

“A smile is your greatest social asset.”

“A smile is the same as sunshine; it banishes winter from the human countenance.”

“What, no more ceremony? See, my women! Against the blown rose may they stop their nose That kneel'd unto the buds.”

“The soul of this man is his clothes.”

“Fair ladies, masked, are roses in their bud;Dismasked, the damask sweet commixture shown,Are angels vailing clouds, or roses blown.”

“...and then, in dreaming, / The clouds methought would open and show riches / Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked / I cried to dream again.”

“O, then I see Queen Mab hath been with you. . . . She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes In shape no bigger than an agate stone On the forefinger of an alderman, Drawn with a team of little atomi Athwart men’s noses as they lie asleep.”

“For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

“If ever thou shalt love,In the sweet pangs of it remember me;For such as I am all true lovers are,Unstaid and skittish in all motions elseSave in the constant image of the creatureThat is beloved.”

“Love sees with the heart and not with mind.”

“I love a ballad but even too well if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.”

“Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words, Remembers me of his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form”

“Remember thee!Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seatIn this distracted globe.”

“My rage is gone,And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.Beat thou the drum, that it speaks mournfully,Trail your steel spikes. Though in this city heHath widowed and unchilded many a one,Which to this hour bewail the injury,Yet he shall have a noble memory.Assist.”