Thomas Hardy

“Everybody is so talented nowadays that the only people I care to honour as deserving real distinction are those who remain in obscurity.”

“If all hearts were open and all desires known—as they would be if people showed their souls—how many gapings, sighings, clenched fists, knotted brows, broad grils, and red eyes should we see in the market-place!”

“Of course poets have morals and manners of their own, and custom is no argument with them.”

“The value of old age depends upon the person who reaches it.  To some men of early performance it is useless.  To others, who are late to develop, it just enables them to finish the job.”

“Though a good deal is too strange to be believed, nothing is too strange to have happened.”