We cannot guess the outcome of our actions... Which is why our actions must always be acceptable in themselves, and not as strategies.

People who are genuinely involved in life, not just living a routine they've contrived to protect them from disaster, always seem to have more demanded of them than they can easily take on.

The compulsion to find a lover and husband in a single person has doomed more women to misery than any other illusion.

New York is not like London, a now-and-then place to many people. You can either not live in New York or not live anyplace else. One is either a lover or hater.

Most full lives are filled with empty gestures.

Whether deliberately, unconsciously or accidentally, she seems to have composed her own life so that its fitful, rudderless, and self-doubting first half was alchemized into gold when the austere bluestocking became the fallen woman.

Quoting, like smoking, is a dirty habit to which I am devoted.