Writing is an act of generosity toward other people.

one tends to suspect others of what one is guilty of oneself. The unfaithful wife is quick to suspect the husband of infidelity.

Pride is what you can afford or think you can afford.

I was always furious because you couldn't take out more than three books in one day. You would go home with your three books and read them and it would still be only five o'clock. The library didn't shut till half past, but you couldn't change the books till the next day.

To the happy all things come: happiness can even bring the dead back to life. It is our resentments, our dreariness, our hate and envy, unrecognized by us, which keeps us miserable. Yet these things are in our heads, not out of our hands; we own them. We can throw them out if we choose.

The desire for self-expression afflicts people when they feel there is something of themselves which is not getting through to the outside world.

Fiction, on the whole, and if it is any good, tends to be a subversive element in society.