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.

It was the first time that I came face to face with madness and feared it and was fascinated by it.

Writers really live in the mind and in hotels of the soul.

Writers, however mature and wise and eminent, are children at heart.

Recollection is not something that I can summon up, it simply comes and I am the servant of it.

Later as the day cools and they have gone in, the cry of the corncrake will carry across those same fields and over the lake to the blue-hazed mountain, such a lonely evening sound to it, like the lonely evening sound of the mothers, saying it is not our fault that we weep so, it is nature's fault that makes us first full, then empty.

There was always a real reason for everything - why spoons tarnished, and jam furred, and people declined into God, or drink, or card games.