Style is what's there when you look at someone's writing and you know that they wrote it and nobody else did.

A woman has all too much substance in a man's eyes at the best of times. That is why men like women to be slim. Her lack of flesh negates her. The less of her there is, the less notice he need take of her. The more like a male she appears to be, the safer he feels.

No one should be allowed to give back the gift of life, unless they are very old and full of tears, when the body outlives the spirit, when they should be allowed to join the others who've already gone.

Confidence is something one acquires. It can come early or late but it is impossible to write without it. Mine came late.

The peculiar need to write is increased, it seems, rather than allayed with practice.

There is no real escape from autobiography into biography. The self has to be faced, or we die.

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.