I would write of the universal, not the provincial, in human nature.... I would write of characters, not of characteristics.

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

I was always a feminist, for I liked intellectual revolt as much as I disliked physical violence. On the whole, I think women havelost something precious, but have gained, immeasurably, by the passing of the old order.

In her abhorrrence of a vacuum, Nature, for the furtherance of her favorite hobby, has often to resort to strange devices. If she could but understand that vacuity is sometimes better than superfluity!

I suppose I am a born novelist, for the things I imagine are more vital and vivid to me than the things I remember.

...I had grown up in a world that was dominated by immature age. Not by vigorous immaturity, but by immaturity that was old and tired and prudent, that loved ritual and rubric, and was utterly wanting in curiosity about the new and the strange. Its era has passed away, and the world it made has crumbled around us. Its finest creation, a code of manners, has been ridiculed and discarded.

To drink for pleasure may be a distraction, but to drink from misery is always a danger.