Every word I say has chains round its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights.

I long to be ... Like Other People! The extraordinary, ungetatable, oddly cruel Other People, with their way of wantonly hurting and then accusing you of being thin-skinned, sulky, vindictive or ridiculous.

As it was in the beginning, ... is now, and ever shall be, world without end.

Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.

I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death.

If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heaven. No more damned magic.

I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any.