Woman can best refind herself by losing herself in some kind of creative activity of her own.

The signs that presage growth, so similar, it seems to me, to those in early adolescence: discontent, restlessness, doubt, despair, longing, are interpreted falsely as signs of decay. In youth one does not as often misinterpret the signs; one accepts them, quite rightly, as growing pains. One takes them seriously, listens to them, follows where they lead. ... But in the middle age, because of the false assumption that it is a period of decline, one interprets these life-signs, paradoxically, as signs of approaching death.

How one hates to think of oneself as alone. How one avoids it. It seems to imply rejection or unpopularity.

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

It was a magic caused by the collision of modern methods and old ones; modern history and ancient; accessibility and isolation. And it was a magic which could only strike spark about that time. A few years earlier, from the point of view of aircraft alone, it would have been impossible to reach these places; a few later, and there will be no such isolation.

Why is it that you can sometimes feel the reality of people more keenly through a letter than face to face?

Cut asparagus at night - in desperation. When one is very tired one always does one more thing.