November at its best - with a sort of delightful menace in the air.

timeliness is an enemy to art.

a sarcastic expression, on a beast, is far more sinister than rage.

Fingers get habits - have memories of their own.

But I shall like my battle. This sort of day puts one in mood for it. Plenty of wood in the shed, jam and potatoes and apples in the cellar, hay and oats and Cressy in the barn. Pooh - what is winter?

Songs are usually unfit for whistling - indeed, whistling (except to the person doing it) is unbearable.

With writing ... you must keep in the habit. After a lapse it will take you not an hour, but a week, a month, maybe, to find your mood again - that mood in which things drop from heaven. There's no forcing it; you can't set your notions in front of you, and stare at them till they take shape; they have to come to you whether you ask them or not. ... And you have to be in the habit of that mood! Of inspiration!