Birth was something that came quite unexpectedly, and afterwards there was one child more in the house.

Being gifted needs courage.

It was jolly in the country. A cow and little pigs to play with and milk warm from the cow.

It gradually dawned upon me that there was no one more difficult to please than my mother.

That a literature in our time is living is shown in that way that it debates problems.

But when I was twelve years old I caught my first strong glimpse of one of the fundamental forces of existence, whose votary I was destined to be for life - namely, Beauty.

But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both.