Anthony Trollope Quotes

A small daily task, if it be really daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules.

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

That I can read and be happy while I am reading, is a great blessing.

Nobody holds a good opinion of a man who holds a low opinion of himself.

To have her meals, and her daily walk, and her fill of novels, and to be left alone, was all that she asked of the gods.

Don't let love interfere with your appetite. It never does with mine.

The habit of reading is the only enjoyment in which there is no alloy; it lasts when all other pleasures fade.

And, above all things, never think that you're not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you very much at your own reckoning.

She was as one who, in madness, was resolute to throw herself from a precipice, but to whom some remnant of sanity remained which forced her to seek those who would save her from herself.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

Love is like any other luxury. You have no right to it unless you can afford it.

Till we can become divine, we must be content to be human, lest in our hurry for change we sink to something lower.

Of all needs a book has, the chief need is to be readable.

Above all else, never think you're not good enough.

There is no way of writing well and also of writing easily.

This habit of reading, I make bold to tell you, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.

Words spoken cannot be recalled, and many a man and many a woman who has spoken a word at once regretted, are far too proud to express that regret.

Throughout the world, the more wrong a man does, the more indignant is he at wrong done to him. 

In this world things are beautiful only because they are not quite seen, or not perfectly understood. Poetry is precious chiefly because it suggests more than it declares.

I am not fit to marry. I am often cross, and I like my own way, and I have a distaste for men.

Book love... is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures.

One can only pour out of a jug that which is in it.

Romance is very pretty in novels, but the romance of a life is always a melancholy matter. They are most happy who have no story to tell.

I really learned how to write from Robert Louis Stevenson, Anthony Trollope, and de Maupassant.

Did you ever know a poor man made better by law or a lawyer!' said Bunce bitterly.

There was but one thing for him;- to persevere till he got her, or till he had finally lost her. And should the latter be his fate, as he began to fear that it would be, then, he would live, but live only, like a crippled man.

For there is no folly so great as keeping one's sorrows hidden.

Her happiness, like that of most of us, was ever in the future,—never reached but always coming. 

It is no good any longer having any opinion upon anything...

A woman's weapon is her tongue.

How am I to tell you what he said? He talked nonsense about my beauty, as all the men do. If a woman were hump-backed, and had only one eye, they wouldn’t be ashamed to tell her she was a Venus.

Who would ever think of learning to live out of an English novel?

When a man gets into his head an idea that the public voice calls for him, it is astonishing how great becomes his trust in the wisdom of the public.

Conduct! Is conduct everything? One may conduct oneself excellently, and yet break one's heart.

Considering how much we are all given to discuss the characters of others, and discuss them often not in the strictest spirit of charity, it is singular how little we are inclined to think that others can speak ill-naturedly of us, and how angry and hurt we are when proof reaches us that they have done so. It is hardly too much to say that we all of us occasionally speak of our dearest friends in a manner in which those dearest friends would very little like to hear themselves mentioned, and that we nevertheless expect that our dearest friends shall invariably speak of us as though they were blind to all our faults, but keenly alive to every shade of our virtues.

Miss Proudie was not quite so civil. Had Mr. Robarts been still unmarried, she also could have smiled sweetly; but she had been exercising smiles on clergymen too long to waste them now on a married parish parson.

The Church of England is the only church in the world that interferes neither with your politics nor your religion

He took such high ground that there was no getting on to it.

every vice might be forgiven in a man and in a son, though every virtue was expected from a woman, and especially from a daughter.

Little bits of things make me do it; — perhaps a word that I said and ought not to have said ten years ago; — the most ordinary little mistakes, even my own past thoughts to myself about the merest trifles. They are always making me shiver.

There is nothing in the world so difficult as that task of making up one's mind. Who is there that has not longed that the power and privilege of selection among alternatives should be taken away from him in some important crisis of his life, and that his conduct should be arranged for him, either this way or that, by some divine power if it were possible, - by some patriarchal power in the absence of divinity, - or by chance, even, if nothing better than chance could be found to do it? But no one dares to cast the die, and to go honestly by the hazard. There must be the actual necessity of obeying the die, before even the die can be of any use.

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.

If you pardon all the evil done to you, you encourage others to do you evil!

The greatest mistake any man ever made is to suppose that the good things of the world are not worth the winning.

A newspaper that wishes to make its fortune should never waste its columns and weary its readers by praising anything.

To feel that your hours are filled to overflowing, that you can barely steal minutes enough for sleep, that the welfare of many is entrusted to you, that the world looks on and approves, that some good is always being done to others -- above all things some good to your country; -- that is happiness.

Thackeray's a good writer and Flaubert is a great artist. Trollope is a good writer and Dickens is a great artist. Colette is a very good writer and Proust is a great artist. Katherine Anne Porter was an extremely good writer and Willa Cather was a great artist.

She had no startling brilliancy of beauty, no pearly whiteness, no radiant carnation. She had not the majestic contour that rivets attention, demands instant wonder, and then disappoints by the coldness of its charms. You might pass Eleanor Harding in the street without notice, but you could hardly pass an evening with her and not lose your heart.

But she knew this,—that it was necessary for her happiness that she should devote herself to some one. All the elegancies and outward charms of life were delightful, if only they could be used as the means to some end. As an end themselves they were nothing.

I hate a stupid man who can't talk to me, and I hate a clever man who talks me down. I don’t like a man who is too lazy to make any effort to shine; but I particularly dislike the man who is always striving for effect. I abominate a humble man, but yet I love to perceive that a man acknowledges the superiority of my sex, and youth and all that kind of thing. . . A man who would tell me that I am pretty, unless he is over seventy, ought to be kicked out of the room. But a man who can't show me that he thinks me so without saying a word about it, is a lout.

It seems to me that if a man can so train himself that he may live honestly and die fearlessly, he has done about as much as is necessary.

I like to have a plan," said Mr. Palliser. "And so do I," said his wife,--"if only for the sake of not keeping it.

I have passed the period of a woman's life when as a woman she is loved; but I have have not outlived the power of loving.

Wounds sometimes must be opened in order that they may be healed.

You shall be my pet, and my poppet, and my dearest little duck all the days of your life.

There are things that will not have themselves buried and put out of sight, as though they had never been.

Men and women ain't lumps of sugar. They don't melt because the water is sometimes warm.

He was one of those men who, as in youth they are never very young, so in age are they never very old.

Then in this country a man is to be punished or not, according to his ability to fee a lawyer!

They say that faint heart never won fair lady. It is amazing to me how fair ladies are won, so faint are often men's hearts!

Love is involuntary. It does not often run in a yoke with prudence.

I don't like anybody or anything," said Lucinda. Yes, you do;--you like horses to ride, and dresses to wear.

The end of a novel, like the end of children’s dinner-party, must be made up of sweetmeats and sugar-plum

Her virtues were too numerous to describe, and not sufficiently interesting to deserve description.

Rest and quiet are the comforts of those who have been content to remain in obscurity.

Of course he had committed forgery;--of course he had committed robbery. That, indeed, was nothing, for he had been cheating and forging and stealing all his life.

Life is so unlike theory.

A man who desires to soften another man's heart, should always abuse himself. In softening a woman's heart, he should abuse her.

That fighting of a battle without belief is, I think, the sorriest task which ever falls to the lot of any man.

A clergyman generally dislikes being met in argument by any scriptural quotation; he feels as affronted as a doctor does, when recommended by an old woman to take some favourite dose.

I have from the first felt sure that the writer, when he sits down to commence his novel, should do so, not because he has to tell a story, but because he has a story to tell. The novelist's first novel will generally have sprung from the right cause.

But then the pastors and men of God can only be human,--cannot altogether be men of God; and so they have oppressed us, and burned us, and tortured us, and hence come to love palaces, and fine linen, and purple, and, alas, sometimes, mere luxury and idleness.

Wine is a dangerous thing, and should not be made the exponent of truth, let the truth be good as it may; but it has the merit of forcing a man to show his true colors.

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

A man has usually to work through much mud before he gets his nugget.

He (The warden) was painfully afraid of a disagreement with any person in any subject....he felt horror at the thought of being made the subject of common gossip and public criticism.

My dear, the truth must be spoken. I declare I don't think I ever saw a young woman so improvident as you are. When are you to begin to think about getting married if you don't do it now?" "I shall never begin to think about it, till I buy my wedding clothes.

Lovers with all the glories and all the graces are supposed to be plentiful as blackberries by girls of nineteen, but have been proved to be rare hothouse fruits by girls of twenty-nine.

A liar has many points to his favour,—but he has this against him, that unless he devote more time to the management of his lies than life will generally allow, he cannot make them tally.

In such families as [Nidderdale's], when such results have been achieved, it is generally understood that matters shall be put right by an heiress. [....] Rank squanders money; trade makes it; -- and then trade purchases rank by re-gilding its splendour

Wars about trifles are always bitter, especially among neighbours. When the differences are great, and the parties comparative strangers, men quarrel with courtesy. What combatants are ever so eager as two brothers?

She was not softly delicate in all her ways; but in disposition and temper she was altogether generous. I do not know that she was at all points a lady, but had Fate so willed it she would have been a thorough gentleman.

There are men whose energies hardly ever carry them beyond looking for the thing they want.

Though they were Liberals they were not democrats; nor yet infidels.

(On Charles Dickens) It has been the peculiarity and the marvel of this man’s power, that he has invested his puppets with a charm that has enabled him to dispense with human nature.

Jacob was not in such a hurry when he wished for Rachel.” “That was all very well for an old patriarch who had seven or eight hundred years to live.” “My dear John, you forget your Bible. Jacob did not live half as long as that.

That girls should not marry for money we are all agreed. A lady who can sell herself for a title or an estate, for an income or a set of family diamonds, treats herself as a farmer treats his sheep and oxen — makes hardly more of herself, of her own inner self, in which are comprised a mind and soul, than the poor wretch of her own sex who earns her bread in the lowest stage of degradation. But a title, and an estate, and an income, are matters which will weigh in the balance with all Eve’s daughters — as they do with all Adam’s sons. Pride of place, and the power of living well in front of the world’s eye, are dear to us all; — are, doubtless, intended to be dear. Only in acknowledging so much, let us remember that there are prices at which these good things may be too costly.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon, at that delicious period of the year when summer has just burst forth from the growth of spring; when the summer is yet but three days old, and all the various shades of green which nature can put forth are still in their unsoiled purity of freshness.

What had passed between Eleanor Harding and Mary Bold need not be told. It is indeed a matter of thankfulness that neither the historian nor the novelist hears all that is said by their heroes or heroines, or how would three volumes or twenty suffice!

Of course, Lady Arabella could not suckle the young heir herself. Ladies Arabella never can. They are gifted with the powers of being mothers, but not nursing mothers. Nature gives them bosoms for show, but not for use. So Lady Arabella had a wet-nurse.

A man can love too.' 'No; -- hardly. He can admire, and he can like, and he can fondle and be fond. He can admire and approve, and perhaps worship. He can know of a woman that she is part of himself, the most sacred part, and therefore will protect her from the very winds. But all that will not make love. It does not come to a man that to be separated from a woman is to be dislocated from his very self. A man has but one centre, and that is himself. A woman has two. Though the second may never been seen by her, may live in the arms of another, may do all for that other that man can do for woman, -- still, still, though he be half the globe asunder from her, still he is to her the half of her existence. If she really love, there is, I fancy no end of it.

She became aware that she had thought the less of him because he had thought the more of her. She had worshipped this other man because he had assumed superiority and had told her that he was big enough to be her master. But now, -- now that it was all too late, -- the veil had fallen from her eyes. She could now see the difference between manliness and 'deportment.

He's a very handsome man, is the captain," said Jeaneatte. . . "You shouldn't think about handsome men, child," said Mrs. Greenow. "And I'm sure I don't," said Jeanette. "Not more than anybody else; but if a man is handsome, ma'am, why, it stands to reason that he is handsome.

It is seldom that we know anything accurately on any subject that we have not made matter of careful study," said Mr. Monk, "and very often do not do so even then. We are very apt to think that we men and women understand one another; but most probably you know nothing even of the modes of thought of the man who lives next door to you.

Every man to himself is the centre of the whole world;—the axle on which it all turns. All knowledge is but his own perception of the things around him. All love, and care for others, and solicitude for the world's welfare, are but his own feelings as to the world's wants and the world's merits.

Book love, my friend, is your pass to the greatest, the purest, and the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for His creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will support you when all other recreations are gone. It will last until your death. It will make your hours pleasant t you as long as you live.

Oh, don't get me started! I love fantasy, I read it for pleasure, even after all these years. Pat McKillip, Ursula Le Guin and John Crowley are probably my favorite writers in the field, in addition to all the writers in the Endicott Studio group - but there are many others I also admire. In children's fantasy, I'm particularly keen on Philip Pullman, Donna Jo Napoli, David Almond and Jane Yolen - though my favorite novels recently were Midori Snyder's Hannah's Garden, Holly Black's Tithe, and Neil Gaiman's Coraline. I read a lot of mainstream fiction as well - I particularly love Alice Hoffman, A.S. Byatt, Sara Maitland, Sarah Waters, Sebastian Faulks, and Elizabeth Knox. There's also a great deal of magical fiction by Native American authors being published these days - Louise Erdrich's Antelope Wife, Alfredo Vea Jr.'s Maravilla, Linda Hogan's Power, and Susan Power's Grass Dancer are a few recent favorites. I'm a big fan of Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens, and Anthony Trollope - I re-read Jane Austen's novels in particular every year.Other fantasists say they read Tolkien every year, but for me it's Austen. I adore biographies, particularly biographies of artists and writers (and particularly those written by Michael Holroyd). And I love books that explore the philosophical side of art, such as Lewis Hyde's The Gift, Carolyn Heilbrun's Writing a Woman's Life, or David Abram's Spell of the Sensuous. (from a 2002 interview)

As for reading, I doubt whether she did much better by the sea-side than she had done in the town. Men and women say that they will read, and think so—those, I mean, who have acquired no habit of reading—believing the work to be, of all works, the easiest. It may be work, they think, but of all works it must be the easiest of achievement. Given the absolute faculty of reading, the task of going through the pages of a book must be, of all tasks, the most certainly within the grasp of the man or woman who attempts it. Alas! no; if the habit be not there, of all tasks it is the most difficult.

Nevertheless a certain class of dishonesty, dishonesty magnificent in its proportions, and climbing into high places, has become at the same time so rampant and so splendid that there seems to be reason for fearing that men and women will be taught to feel that dishonesty, if it can become splendid, will cease to be abominable. If dishonesty can live in a gorgeous palace with pictures on all its walls, and gems in all its cupboards, with marble and ivory in all its corners, and can give Apician dinners, and get into Parliament, and deal in millions, then dishonesty is not disgraceful, and the man dishonest after such a fashion is not a low scoundrel. Instigated, I say, by some such reflections as these, I sat down in my new house to write The Way We Live Now. And as I had ventured to take the whip of the satirist into my hand, I went beyond the iniquities of the great speculator who robs everybody, and made an onslaught also on other vices;--on the intrigues of girls who want to get married, on the luxury of young men who prefer to remain single, and on the puffing propensities of authors who desire to cheat the public into buying their volumes.

The old family carriage and the two lady's maids were there,--as necessaries of life; but London society was not within her reach. It was therefore the case that they had not heard very much about Lizzie Eustace. But they had heard something. "I hope she won't be too fond of going out," said Amelia, the second girl. "Or extravagant," said Georgina, the third. "There was some story of her being terribly in debt when she married Sir Florian Eustace," said Diana, the fourth. "Frederic will be sure to see to that," said Augusta, the eldest. "She is very beautiful," said Lydia, the fifth. "And clever," said Cecilia, the sixth. "Beauty and cleverness won't make a good wife," said Amelia, who was the wise one of the family. "Frederic will be sure to see that she doesn't go wrong," said Augusta who was not wise.