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.

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.

The pleasure of all reading is doubled when one lives with another who shares the same books.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.... This all sounds very strenuous and serious. But now that I have wrestled with it, it's no longer so. I feel happy- deep down. All is well.

Do you remember your childhood? I am always coming across these marvelous accounts by writers who declare that they remember 'everything.' I certainly don't. The dark stretches, the blanks, are much bigger than the bright glimpses. I seem to have spent most of my time like a plant in a cupboard.

To work - to work! It is such infinite delight to know that we still have the best things to do.

But the more poetry one reads the more one longs to read!