But some characters in books are really real--Jane Austen's are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not giving one thought to the real facts of marriage.

There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.

Thinking of death--strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off--made me feel happier than ever.

...I have noticed that when things happen in one's imaginings, they never happen in one's life, so I am curbing myself.

I was wandering around as usual, in my unpleasantly populated sub-conscious.

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

I write this sitting in the kitchen sink.