Youth gives a sense of new days dawning bright, going on for ever, and a kind of tamped-down excitement which keeps breaking through even the worst days of poverty, depression and loneliness. But then youth is something which only exists in retrospect; you are barely conscious of it while you have it.

Ambition will, and should, always outstrip achievement.

one learns best, and writes best, in a state of defiance.

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

You will find that women who are pregnant often don't want to be and women who aren't desperately envy those who are. Labour wards are always full of very punitive people.

guilt to motherhood is like grapes to wine

There was no such thing as defeat if you didn't accept it.