I have been much afflicted again lately by visitors . . . and they gave me to understand that if they had had the arranging of the garden it would have been finished long ago - whereas I don't believe a garden is ever finished. They have all gone now, thank heaven.

Impossible for anyone to conceive the torments of his nights in bed with his beloved one and estranged from her. That turning of backs, that cold space between their two unhappy bodies.

Love isn't decent. Love is glorious and shameless.

... Why, it would really be being unselfish to go away and be happy for a little, because we would come back so much nicer.

Keep quiet and say one's prayers-certainly not merely the best, but the only things to do if one would be truly happy; but, ashamed of asking when I have received so much, the only form of prayer I would use would be a form of thanksgiving.

Reading was very important; the proper exercise and development of one's mind was a paramount duty.

She belongs to the winter that is past, to the darkness that is over, and has no part or lot in the life I shall lead for the next six months. Oh, I could dance and sing for joy that the spring is here! What a ressurection of beauty there is in my garden, and of brightest hope in my heart.