...the future will one day be the present and will seem as unimportant as the present does now. - William Somerset Maugham

They say a woman always remembers her first lover with affection; but perhaps she does not always remember him.

I did not believe him capable of love. That is an emotion in which tenderness is an essential part, but Strickland had no tenderness either for himself or for others; there is in love a sense of weakness, a desire to protect, an eagerness to do good and to give pleasure — if not unselfishness, at all events a selfishness which marvellously conceals itself; it has in it a certain diffidence.

You've been brought up like a gentleman and a Christian, and I should be false to the trust laid upon me by your dead father and mother if I allowed you to expose yourself to such temptation.'

Well, I know I'm not a Christian and I'm beginning to doubt whether I'm a gentleman,' said Philip.