I suppose I have written novels to find out what I thought about something and poems to find out what I felt about something.

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. . . .

How much hope, expectation, and sheer hard work goes into the smallest success! There is no being sure of anything except that whatever has been created will change in time.

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

Deep down there was understanding, not of the facts of our lives so much as of our essential natures.

I suppose one has to remember that 'life' is important too, though it's something I forget in some moods, everything except work seeming like an interruption or really non-life.

The garden is growth and change and that means loss as well as constant new treasures to make up for a few disasters.