With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

for real pleasure a pleasure resort should have no one in it but its legitimate inhabitants, oneself, and perhaps one's friends.

Mother's room, and mother's need for privacy become a valuable lesson in respect for other people's rights.

There's always this sense of incredulity that writers feel, because they're usually living flat and ordinary lives, because they have to.

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

What I had that others didn't was a capacity for sticking to it.

For with my intuition I knew that this man was repeating a pattern over and over again: courting a woman with his intelligence and sympathy, claiming her emotionally; then, when she began to claim in return, running away. And the better a woman was, the sooner he would begin to run. I knew this with my intuition, and yet I sat there in my dark room, looking at the hazed wet brilliance of the purple London night sky, longing with my whole being.