“This volume was written for children. Miss Landon set out its purpose in the preface.”

“Volumes might be written upon the impiety of the pious.”

“Whoever undertakes to set himself up as a judge of Truth and Knowledge is shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods."

[Preface to(1794)]”

“Children know by instinct that hell is an absence of love, and they can pick out theirs without missing.”

“The preface? Why would he waste time with the preface? Skip the preface and move on to the meat of the thing!”

“If I were at any time to set out on a career of deceit, it would be of Miss Marple that I should be afraid.”

“Setting a good example for children takes all the fun out of middle age.”

“Prose must be written in language that is well understood by its readers. The world would hardly miss those literary works that are mastered by only half-a-dozen pundits.”

“According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, roughly 800,000 children are reported missing each year in the United States. Most are found. Thousands are not.”

“History is written for the purpose of narration and not in order to give proof.”
Historia et scribitur ad narrandum non ad probandum.