[I]f a book is well written, I always find it too short.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.

His own enjoyment, or his own ease, was, in every particular, his ruling principle.

The hard part is putting one word after another.

You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.

...the pleasantness of an employment does not always evince its propriety.