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.

I have such a horror of telegrams that ask me how I am!! I always want to reply dead.

If only one could tell true love from false love as one can tell mushrooms from toadstools.

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.

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 am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write

What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.