To give without any reward, or any notice, has a special quality of its own.

So many things we love are you!

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

In general, I feel, or I have come to feel, that the richest writing comes not from the people who dedicate themselves to writing alone. I know this is contradicted again and again but I continue to feel it. They don't, of course, write as much, or as fast, but I think it is riper and more satisfying when it does come. One of the difficulties of writing or doing any kind of creative work in America seems to me to be that we put such stress on production and material results. We put a time pressure and a mass pressure on creative work which are meaningless and infantile in that field.

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

Certain environments, certain modes of life, and certain rules of conduct are more conducive to inner and outer harmony than others. There are, in fact, certain roads that one may follow. Simplification is one of them.

We are always bargaining with our feelings so that we can live from day to day.