In the short summer night she learned so much. She would have thought a woman would have died of shame... She felt, now, she had come to the real bedrock of her nature, and was essentially shameless. She was her sensual self, naked an unashamed. She felt a triumph, almost a vainglory. So! That was how it was! That was life! That was how onself really was! There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.

Men are free when they belong to a living, organic, believing community, active in fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose.

Why doesn't the past decently bury itself, instead of sitting waiting to be admired by the present?

Naught is possessed, neither gold, nor land nor love, nor life, nor peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yet salvation. Say of nothing: It is mine. Say only: It is with me.

This is what I believe: That I am I. That my soul is a dark forest. That my known self will never be more than a little clearing in the forest. That gods, strange gods, come forth from the forest into the clearing of my known self, and then go back. That I must have the courage to let them come and go. That I will never let mankind put anything over me, but that I will try always to recognize and submit to the gods in me and the gods in other men and women. There is my creed.

I hate England and its hopelessness. I hate [Arnold] Bennett's resignation. Tragedy ought really to be a great big kick at misery.

The dead don't die. They look on and help.