I am the fruit of a horrible education, sown on a worthless soil.

I am all that, and yet I believe I have one merit! I should know a great character when I saw it, and I should delight in it with a generosity which would do something toward the remission of my sins.

For a man who should really give me a certain feeling--which I have never had, but which I should know when it came--I would send Prince Casamassima and his millions to perdition.

I don't know what you think of me for saying all this; I suppose we have not climbed up here under the skies to play propriety.

Why have you been at such pains to assure me, after all, that you are a little man and not a great one, a weak one and not a strong?
I innocently imagined that your eyes declared you were strong.