We Americans, with our terrific emphasis on youth, action, and material success, certainly tend to belittle the afternoon of life and even to pretend it never comes. We push the clock back and try to prolong the morning, over-reaching and over-straining ourselves in the unnatural effort. ... In our breathless attempts we often miss the flowering that waits for afternoon.

Nothing feeds the center of being so much as creative work. The curtain of mechanization has come down between the mind and the hand.

I should like to be a full-time Mother and a full-time Artist and a full-time Wife-Companion and also a 'Charming Woman' on the side! And to be aware and record it all. I cannot do it all. Something must go - several things probably. The 'charming woman' first!

people talk about 'sex' as though it hopped about by itself, like a frog!

Communication with another person -- wasn't it the realest thing in life?

I want a singleness of eye, a purity of intention, a central core to my life that will enable me to carry out these obligations and activities as well as I can.

Perhaps this is the most important thing for me to take back from beach-living: simply the memory that each cycle of the tide is valid; each cycle of the wave is valid; each cycle of a relationship is valid.