It is in general true that in order to create works of art one has to have leisure. On the other hand I think that one needs to experience resistance in a practical sense, and even that which is poignant to bring out what makes easy reading for others. Too much deprivation of course, means death.

[On her use of quotations:] When a thing has been said so well that it could not be said better, why paraphrase it? Hence my writing, is, if not a cabinet of fossils, a kind of collection of flies in amber.

The heart that gives, gathers.

Excess is the common substitute for energy.

Truly as the sun can rot or mend, love can make one bestial or make a beast a man.

There is a great amount of poetry in unconscious fastidiousness.

he who gives quickly gives twice / in nothing so much as in a letter.