"A king is always a king - and a woman always a woman: his authority and her sex ever stand between t..." — Mary Shelley

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind.

But I am a blasted tree; the bolt has entered my soul; and I felt then that I should survive to exhibit what I shall soon cease to be - a miserable spectacle of wrecked humanity, pitiable to others and intolerable to myself.

My dreams were at once more fantastic and agreeable than my writings.

Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world.