I always write my letters post-haste--so precipitately, that though I write intolerably ill, I rather choose to do it myself, than to employ another; for I can find none able to follow me: and I never transcribe any.

I have accustomed the great ones who know me to endure my blots and dashes, and upon paper without fold or margin.

Those that cost me the most pains, are the worst; when I once begin to draw it in by head and shoulders, 'tis a sign that I am not there.

I fall too without premeditation or design; the first word begets the second, and so to the end of the chapter.

The letters of this age consist more in fine edges and prefaces than in matter.