In the shortest sea voyage there is no sense of time. You have been down in the cabin for hours or days or years. Nobody knows or cares. You know all the people to the point of indifference. You do not believe in dry land any more - you are caught in the pendulum itself, and left there, idly swinging.

I don't believe other people are ever as foolishly excited as I am while I'm working. How could they be? Writers would have to live in trees.

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.

Isn't life,' she stammered, 'isn't life--' But what life was she couldn't explain. No matter. He quite understood. 'Isn't it, darling?' said Laurie.

we cling to our last pleasures as the tree clings to its last leaves.

The truth is friendship is every bit as sacred and eternal as marriage.

Letters are the real curse of my existence. I hate to write them: I have to. If I don't, there they are - the great guilty gates barring my way.