This is what one thirsts for, I realize, after the smallness of the day, of work, of details, of intimacy - even of communication, one thirsts for the magnitude and universality of a night full of stars, pouring into one like a fresh tide.

The beach is not the place to work; to read, write or think.

Love is a force. . . . It is not a result; it is a cause. It is not a product. It is a power, like money, or steam or electricity. It is valueless unless you can give something else by means of it.

What release to write so that one forgets oneself, forgets one's companion, forgets where one is or what one is going to do next to be drenched in sleep or in the sea. Pencils and pads and curling blue sheets alive with letters heap up on the desk.

Perhaps middle-age is, or should be, a period of shedding shells; the shell of ambition, the shell of material accumulations and possessions, the shell of the ego.

Ideally, both members of a couple in love free each other to new and different worlds.

The most exhausting thing you can do is to be inauthentic.