there is no sin punished more implacably by nature than the sin of resistance to change.

Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves; that firm strand which will be the indispensable center of a whole web of human relationships.

Only with winter-patience can we bring the deep-desired, long-awaited Spring.

Why do progress and beauty have to be so opposed?

It takes as much courage to have tried and failed as it does to have tried and succeeded.

People "died" all the time. . . . Parts of them died when they made the wrong kinds of decisions-decisions against life. Sometimes they died bit by bit until finally they were just living corpses walking around. If you were perceptive you could see it in their eyes; the fire had gone out. . . you always knew when you made a decision against life. The door clicked and you were safe inside-safe and dead.

I must write it all out, at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.