I am not kind, I cut people off as with shears and I drop them like nettles.

We hide the truer part of ourselves when we love.

You have to be lonely to be a writer

Life, after all, was a secret with the self. The more one gave out, the less there remained for the center--that center which she coveted for herself and recognized instantly in others. Fruits had it, the very heart of, say, a cherry, where the true worth and flavor lay. Some of course were flawed or hollow in there. Many, in fact.

never forget this moment, the hum of the bee, the saffron threads of the flower, the drawn blinds, nature's assiduousness and human cruelty.

All my life I had feared imprisonment, the nun's cell, the hospital bed, the places where one faced the self without distraction, without the crutches of other people.

History is said to be written by the victors. Fiction, by contrast, is largely the work of injured bystanders.