What on earth could be more luxurious than a sofa, a book, and a cup of coffee?...Was ever anything so civil? - Anthony Trollope

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.

Now, now that she was older and perhaps wiser, love meant a partnership, in which each partner would be honest to the other, in which each would wish and strive for the other's welfare, to that this their joint welfare might be insured. Then, in those early girlish days, it had meant a total abnegation of self. The one was of earth, and therefore possible. The other had been a ray from heaven, - and impossible, except in a dream.

Of all reviews, the crushing review is the most popular, as being the most readable.