Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up. – Sydney Smith
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style. – Sydney Smith
I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave. – Sydney Smith
Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face. – Sydney Smith
Letters are above all useful as a means of expressing the ideal self; and no other method of communication is quite so good for this purpose. In letters we can reform without practice, beg without humiliation, snip and shape embarrassing experiences to the measure of our own desires… – Elizabeth Hardwick