I find that when I think I am asking God to forgive me I am often in reality. . . asking Him not to forgive me but to excuse me.

Friendship (as the ancients saw) can be a school of virtue, but also (as they did not see) a school of vice. It is ambivalent. It makes good men better and bad men worse.

Freedom always comes with a price.

Slowly, quietly, like snow-flakes—like the small flakes that come when it is going to snow all night —little flakes of me, my impressions, my selections, are settling down on the image of her. The real shape wil be quite hidden in the end.

Ink is the great cure for all human ills.

Mental pain is less dramatic than physical pain, but it is more common and also more hard to bear. The frequent attempt to conceal mental pain increases the burden: it is easier to say “My tooth is aching” than to say “My heart is broken.

Isn't it funny the way some combinations of words can give you--almost apart from their meaning--a thrill like music?