Marie Corelli

“I entirely agree with you about the obscurity of Mrs Browning's line about the stars. It is far-fetched. She wanted to express something which she found beyond expression.”

“I must not say what I truly think, or you will tell me I flatter you-but I can only speak what I feel-and very often I cannot even do that when the feeling is very deep.”

“I never married because there was no need. I have three pets at home which answer the same purpose as a husband. I have a dog which growls every morning, a parrot which swears all afternoon, and a cat that comes home late at night.”

“Such lovely warmth of thought and delicacy of colour are beyond all praise, and equally beyond all thanks!”

“The Browning love story? It is an ideal, all too rare, and yet I hardly think it strange. It would have been far stranger had the fates allowed those two brilliant passionate souls to beat themselves out in silence.”

“Curious that it is impossible for a man to be original without attracting around him a set of unoriginal minds, as though he were a honey-pot and they the flies!”

“Does one love a statue?" she demanded. "Shall I caress a picture? Shall I rain tears or kisses over the mere semblance of a life that does not live, shall I fondle hands that never return my clasp? Love! Love is in my heart -yes! like a shut-up fire in a tomb,but you hold the key, and the flame dies for want of air.”

“Was it worth while, he thought, to be so wise, if wisdom made one at times so sad? Was it well to sacrifice Faith for Fact, when Faith was so warm and Fact so cold? Was it better to be a dreamer of things possible, or a worker-out of things positive? And how much was positive, after all, and how much possible? He balanced the question lightly with himself. It was like a discord in the music of his mind, and disturbed his peace.”

“You should always be well and bright, for so you do your best work; and you have so much beautiful work to do. The world needs it, and you must give it!”

“Be sure that if you are unhappily celebrated for either beauty, wit, intellect, or all three together, half society wishes you dead already, and the other half tries to make you as wretched as possible while you are alive.”

“Fancy your having no sunshine in London yesterday! Here it was glorious, like full summer, and I sat up with the window wide open, listening to the discourse of two amorous thrushes.”