... it appears to me that problems, inherent in any writing, loom unduly large when one looks ahead. Though nothing is easy, little is quite impossible.

Intimacies between women often go backwards, beginning in revelations and ending in small talk.

Each piece of dialogue MUST be "something happening". . .The "amusing" for its OWN sake should above all be censored. . .The functional use of dialogue for the plot must be the first thing in the writer's mind. Where functional usefulness cannot be established, dialogue must be left out.

Chance is better than choice; it is more lordly. Chance is God, choice is man.

I pity people who do not care for Society. They are poorer for the oblation they do not make.

The paradox of romantic love -- that what one possesses, one can no longer desire -- was at work.

If a theme or idea is too near the surface, the novel becomes simply a tract illustrating an idea.