To remain pure, a novel has to cast a moral puzzle. Anything else is mere negotiation.

I need noise and interruptions and irritation: irritation and discomfort are a great starter. The loneliness of doing it any other way would kill me.

The essence of romantic love is that wonderful beginning, after which sadness and impossibility may become the rule.

A man of such obvious and exemplary charm must be a liar.

Romanticism is not just a mode; it literally eats into every life. Women will never get rid of just waiting for the right man.

One loses the capacity to grieve as a child grieves, or to rage as a child rages: hotly, despairingly, with tears of passion. One grows up, one becomes civilized, one learns one's manners, and consequently can no longer manage these two functions - sorrow and anger - adequately.

No blame should attach to telling the truth. But it does, it does.