Quotes from Mary Russell Mitford

She was the prettiest, silliest, most affected, husband-hunting butterfly ever.

To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun.

A novel should be as like life as a painting, but not as like life as a piece of waxwork.

Trees and children are, of all living things, those whose growth soonest makes one feel one's age.

I have still the best comforts of life - books and friendships - and I trust never to lose my relish for either.

... they know little of the passions who seek to argue with that most intractable of them all, the fear that is born of love.

That bad letters of every kind arise from want of the habit of thinking, I cannot doubt.

I detest so much ... those persons, who insist upon telling you everything - who labor every point, as the lawyers say, as if they thought all excellence consisted in length.

Friendship is the bread of the heart.

To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun.