Only on the surface of things have I ever trod the beaten path. So long as I could keep from hurting anyone else, I have lived, as completely as it was possible, the life of my choice. I have been free. . . . I have done the work I wished to do for the sake of that work alone.

The nearer she came to death, the more, by some perversity of nature, did she enjoy living.

... to be "literary" appeared to my deluded innocence as an unending romance.

I don't like human nature, but I do like human beings.

A tragic irony of life is that we so often achieve success or financial independence after the chief reason for which we sought it has passed away.

... the life of the mind is reality, and love without romantic illumination is a spiritless matter.

[Reformers] might be classified as a distinct species having eyes in the back of their heads.