Warm, eager, living life-to be rooted in life-to learn, to desire, to know, to feel, to think, to act. This is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.

Why it should be such an effort to write to the people one loves I can't imagine. It's none at all to write to those who don't really count.

Every time one leaves anywhere, something precious, which ought not to be killed, is left to die.

But one day we shall be rich, and the next poor. One day we shall dine in a palace and the next we'll sit in a forest and toast mushrooms on a hatpin.

We can do whatever we wish to do provided our wish is strong enough. But the tremendous effort needed- one doesn't always want to make it-does one? ... But what else can be done? What's the alternative? What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

I'm a writer first and a woman after.

September is different from all other months. It is more magical. I feel the strange chemical change in the earth which produces mushrooms is the cause, too, of the extra 'life' in the air - a resilience, a sparkle.