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

I can conceive of 'falling in love' over and over again. But 'marriage,' this richness of life itself, I cannot conceive of having again - or with anyone else. In this sense 'marriage' seems to me indissoluble.

Is there anything as horrible as starting on a trip? Once you're off, that's all right, but the last moments are earthquake and convulsion, and the feeling that you are a snail being pulled off your rock.

Beauty cannot disguise nor music melt A pain undiagnosable but felt.

I want to be pure in heart -- but I like to wear my purple dress.

Only when a tree has fallen can you take the measure of it. It is the same with a man.

My diaries were written primarily, I think, not to preserve the experience but to savor it, to make it even more real, more visible and palpable, than in actual life. For in our family an experience was not finished, not truly experienced, unless written down or shared with another.