It is the striving after perfection that makes one an artist. It is the sense that one is imperfect, unfulfilled, unfinished. One attempts by a superhuman effort to fill the gap, to leap over it, to finish it in another medium. And one creates a third and separate thing: 'Adventure rarely reaches its predetermined end. Columbus never reached China. But he discovered America.

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.

Can you write a book and have children at the same time? Yes, if you're content to do it very very slowly.

For it is not merely the trivial which clutters our lives but the important as well

Woman's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.

Certain springs are tapped only when you're alone.

For the most part, we, who could choose simplicity, choose complication.