Julia's vocabulary was "chock-full" of strangely archaic words - "spiffing," "crumbs," "jeepers" - that seemed to have originated in some prewar girls' annual rather than in Julia's own life. For Jackson, words were functional, they helped you get to places and explain things. For Julia, they were freighted with inexplicable emotion.

Probably not needing to be published would give me more time to think about a book.

I feel as if I’m waiting for something dreadful to happen, and then I realize it already has.

I have been to the world's end and back and now I know what I would put in my bottom drawer .I would put my sisters.

I can't imagine what it would be like to write in a relaxed state. I'm going to be writing some stories for my own interest. I want to experiment with different things and see if I can approach writing with much less control and in a better psychological state. It will be like breaking out of a straitjacket.

Love was the hardest thing. Don't let anyone ever tell you different.

(although anyone with half a brain must surely be mired in existential gloom all the time)