I feel often very close to the ecstasy and anguish which lie at the very heart of poetry - I am writing a lot.

There is a proper balance between not asking enough of oneself and asking or expecting too much.

Solitude is the salt of personhood. It brings out the authentic flavor of every experience.

I simply adore being alone - I find it a consuming thirst - and when that thirst is slaked, then I am happy.

Solitude is my element, and the reason is that extreme awareness of other people... precludes awareness of one's self so that after a while the self no longer knows that it exists.

Death does frame a person and somehow it is the good that stays.

There was such a thing as women's work and it consisted chiefly, Hilary sometimes thought, in being able to stand constant interruption and keep your temper. . . .