The bearing, rearing, feeding and educating of children; the running of a house with its thousand details; human relationships with their myriad pulls - women's normal occupations in general run counter to creative life, or contemplative life, or saintly life.

One learns to accept the fact that no permanent return is possible to an old form of relationship; and, more deeply still, that there is no holding of a relationship to a single form. This is not tragedy but part of the ever-recurrent miracle of life and growth.

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

Frenchwomen just never look ungroomed, do they?

I do not like talking casually to people - it does not interest me - and most of them are unwilling to talk at all seriously.

What a crippling art writing is, no body to it, no craft, really. It's all in the mind and you never see it or feel it -- only sometimes hear it. It uses only such a small part of man. I wish I were a sculptor.

It is terribly amusing how many different climates of feelings one can go through in one day.