"I am not an optimist. I am not a pessimist. I am a realist."

"To write a good letter, you must have a good mind."

"The world is a looking-glass, and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face."

"I feel a thousand capacities spring up in me. I am not a woman but a man, for I can think, I can write, I can be a thousand things."

"I detest the masculine point of view. I am bored by the male view of life. I am nauseated by the male fiction."