The Portrait of a Lady — Volume 1 quotes

Under certain circumstances there are few hours in life more agreeable than the hour dedicated to the ceremony known as afternoon tea.

“I’m very fond of my liberty.”

— Spoken by a character · Chapter II

If one’s strong one loves only the more strongly.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XVI

A swift carriage, of a dark night, rattling with four horses over roads that one can’t see--that’s my idea of happiness.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XVII

One can’t judge till one’s forty; before that we’re too eager, too hard, too cruel, and in addition much too ignorant.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XIX

Her imagination was by habit ridiculously active; when the door was not open it jumped out of the window.

Henrietta was a literary woman, and the great advantage of being a literary woman was that you could go everywhere and do everything.

Whatever life you lead you must put your soul in it--to make any sort of success of it; and from the moment you do that it ceases to be romance, I assure you: it becomes grim reality!

— Henrietta · Chapter XX

The girl had a certain nobleness of imagination which rendered her a good many services and played her a great many tricks.

She carried within herself a great fund of life, and her deepest enjoyment was to feel the continuity between the movements of her own soul and the agitations of the world.

I call people rich when they’re able to meet the requirements of their imagination.

— Spoken by a character · Chapter XVIII