We must know, if only in order to learn not to know. The supreme lesson of human consciousness is to learn how not to know. That is, how not to interfere.

Literature is a toil and a snare, a curse that bites deep.

Without secrecy there would be no pornography. But secrecy and modesty are two utterly different things.

Brave people add up to an aristocracy. The democracy of thou-shalt-not is bound to be a collection of weak men.

The words themselves are clean, so are the things to which they apply. But the mind drags in a filthy association, calls up some repulsive emotion. Well, then, cleanse the mind, that is the real job. It is the mind which is the Augean stables, not language.

Far back, far back in our dark soul the horse prances.

For, of course, being a girl, one’s whole dignity and meaning in life consisted in the achievement of an absolute, a perfect, a pure and noble freedom. What else did a girl’s life mean?