"“As far as I have had opportunity of judging, it appears to be that the usual style of letter-writing among women is faultless, except in three particulars.” “And what are they?” “A general deficiency of subject, a total inattention to stops, and a very frequent ignorance of grammar.” p. 52, 2013"

"But historians are not accountable for the difficulty of learning to read; and even you yourself, who do not altogether seem particularly friendly to very severe, very intense application, may perhaps be brought to acknowledge that it is very well worth while to be tormented for two or three years of one's life, for the sake of being able to read all the rest of it., p. 228, 2013"

"His departure gave Catherine the first experimental conviction that a loss may be sometimes a gain., p. 448, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 28"

"You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds on happiness as possible., p. 356, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 22"

"I will not say, ‘Do not be uneasy,’ because I know that you are so, at this moment; but be as little uneasy as you can., p. 304, 2013"

"The mere habit of learning to love is the thing; and a teachableness of disposition in a young lady is a great blessing."

"It is probable that she will neither love so well, nor flirt so well, as she might do either singly., p. 302, 2013"

"No man is offended by another man’s admiration of the woman he loves; it is the woman only who can make it a torment., p. 302, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 19"

"Nay, if it is to be guess-work, let us all guess for ourselves. To be guided by second-hand conjecture is pitiful. The premises are before you., p. 302, 2013"

"I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured., p. 428, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 24"

"Me?— yes; I cannot speak well enough to be unintelligible., p. 268, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 16"

"From politics it was an easy step to silence."

"A distinction to which they had been born gave no pride., p. 284, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 17"

"Miss Morland, no one can think more highly of the understanding of women than I do. In my opinion, nature has given them so much, that they never find it necessary to use more than half., p. 228, 2013"

"A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

"If we do not have hearts, we have eyes; and they give us torment enough., p. 294, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 18"

"Prepare for your sister-in-law, Eleanor, and such a sister-in-law as you must delight in! Open, candid, artless, guileless, with affections strong but simple, forming no pretensions, and knowing no disguise. en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 25"

"But death, fires, and burglary, make all men equals..."

"It opens the lungs, washes the countenance, exercises the eyes, and softens down the temper," said Mr. Bumble. "So cry away."

"The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile, engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved: crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a meal."

"By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being heard--accidently, of course."

"'Fair, or not fair,' retorted Sikes, 'hand over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!'"

"I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys."

"Dignity, and even holiness too, sometimes, are more questions of coat and waistcoat than some people imagine."

"'What's that?' said the Jew. 'What do you watch me for? Why are you awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick--quick! for your life."

"What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah! it's a fine thing for the trade! Five of them strung up in a row, and none left to play booty or turn white-livered!"

"Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that self-preservation is the first law of nature."

"Noah writhed and twisted his body into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr. Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture."

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, "the law is a ass — a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience — by experience."

"'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days.'"

"'A regular right-down bad 'un, Work'us,' replied Noah, coolly. 'And it's a great deal better, Work'us, that she died when she did, or else she'd have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung; which is more likely than either, isn't it?'"

"There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast."

"'Please, sir, I want some more.'"

"Oliver Twist has asked for more!"

"The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration, — a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence, — and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next: the balance being decidedly in favor of the latter. Now, if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time."

"'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced; 'Come, Oliver! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, Oliver.'"

"'Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!'"

"It was a nice sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were looking up."

"There was something terribly enthralling in the exercise of influence. No other activity was like it. To project one's soul into some gracious form, and let it tarry there for a moment; to hear one's own intellectual views echoed back to one with all the added music of passion and youth; to convey one's temperament into another as though it were a subtle fluid or a strange perfume: there was a real joy in that--perhaps the most satisfying joy left to us in an age so limited and vulgar as our own, an age grossly carnal in its pleasures, and grossly common in its aims."

"Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic. Worlds had to be in travail, that the meanest flower might blow."

"Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic."

"I always like to know everything about my new friends, and nothing about my old ones."

"Examinations, sir, are pure humbug from beginning to end. If a man is a gentleman, he knows quite enough, and if he is not a gentleman, whatever he knows is bad for him."

""What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry. "Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say"."

"I am jealous of everything whose beauty does not die. I am jealous of the portrait you have painted of me. Why should it keep what I must lose? Every moment that passes takes something from me and gives something to it. Oh, if it were only the other way! If the picture could change, and I could be always what I am now! Why did you paint it? It will mock me some day--mock me horribly!"

"How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful. But this picture will remain always young. It will never be older than this particular day of June.... If it were only the other way! If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old! For that – for that – I would give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give! I would give my soul for that!"

"Always! That is a dreadful word. It makes me shudder when I hear it. Women are so fond of using it. They spoil every romance by trying to make it last for ever. It is a meaningless word, too. The only difference between a caprice and a lifelong passion is that the caprice lasts a little longer."

"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."

"But we never get back our youth. The pulse of joy that beats in us at twenty becomes sluggish. Our limbs fail, our senses rot. We degenerate into hideous puppets, haunted by the memory of the passions of which we were too much afraid, and the exquisite temptations that we had not the courage to yield to. Youth! Youth! There is absolutely nothing in the world but youth!"

"A new hedonism,—that is what our century wants. You might be its visible symbol. With your personality there is nothing you could not do. The world belongs to you for a season."