"Dear Reader, you may take it from me, that however hard you try — or don't try; whatever you do — or don't do; for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; every way and every day: . So it is no good bothering about it. When the little pests grow up they will certainly tell you exactly what you did wrong in their case. But never mind; they will be just as wrong themselves in their turn."

"The chief thing I learnt at school was how to tell lies. Or rather, how to try to tell them; for, of course, I did it very badly."

"Ladies were ladies in those days; they did not do things themselves."

"You can have no idea, if you have not tried, how difficult it is to find out anything whatever from an encyclopaedia, unless you know all about it already."

"I have defined Ladies as people who did not do things themselves. Aunt Etty was most emphatically such a person."

"In my grandparents' house it was a distinction and a mournful pleasure to be ill. This was partly because my grandfather was always ill, and his children adored him and were inclined to imitate him; and partly because it was so delightful to be pitied and nursed by my grandmother."

"The first religious experience that I can remember is getting under the nursery table to pray that the dancing mistress might be dead before we got to the Dancing Class."