A biography for Anthony Trollopehasn’t been written yet.
“I ain't a bit ashamed of anything.”
“But the character of a man is not to be judged from the pictures which he may draw or from the antics which he may play in his solitary hours. Those who act generally with the most consummate wisdom in the affairs of the world, often meditate very silly doings before their wiser resolutions form themselves.”
“A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.”
“The satirist who writes nothing but satire should write but little - or it will seem that his satire springs rather from his own caustic nature than from the sins of the world in which he lives.”
“As to that leisure evening of life, I must say that I do not want it. I can conceive of no contentment of which toil is not to be the immediate parent.”
“I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tell a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's first novel will generally have sprung from the right cause.”
“Wars about trifles are always bitter, especially among neighbours. When the differences are great, and the parties comparative strangers, men quarrel with courtesy. What combatants are ever so eager as two brothers?”
“People seem to think that if a man is a Member of Parliament he may do what he pleases. ... Being in Parliament used to be something when I was young, but it won't make a make a gentleman now-a-days. It seems to me that none but brewers, and tallow-chandlers, and lawyers go into Parliament now.”
“No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.”
“The persons whom you cannot care for in a novel, because they are so bad, are the very same that you so dearly love in your life, because they are so good.”
“Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write.”
“I have no ambition to surprise my reader. Castles with unknown passages are not compatible with my homely muse.”
“Success is the necessary misfortune of life, but it is only to the very unfortunate that it comes early.”
“They who do not understand that a man may be brought to hope that which of all things is the most grievous to him, have not observed with sufficient closeness the perversity of the human mind.”
“Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.”
“She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.”
“A man's love, till it has been chastened and fastened by the feeling of duty which marriage brings with it, is instigated mainly by the difficulty of pursuit.”
“The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion”
“A fellow oughtn't to let his family property go to pieces.”
“The cigar has been smoked out, and we are the ashes.”