Funny way to spend your life, though, studying another chap's versifying.

…my Solitude is my Treasure, the best thing I have.

Our days weave together the simple pleasures of daily life, which we should never take for granted, and the higher pleasures of Art and Thought which we may now taste as we please, with none to forbid or criticise.

The more research you do, the more at ease you are in the world you're writing about. It doesn't encumber you, it makes you free.

Everything is surprising, rightly seen.

I don't understand why, in my work, writing is always so dangerous. It's very destructive. People who write books are destroyers.

A beautiful woman, Simone Weil said, seeing herself in the mirror, knows "This is I." An ugly woman knows with equal certainty, "This is not I." Maud knew this neat division represented an over-simplification. The doll-mask she saw had nothing to do with her, nothing.