I have never written a book that was not born out of a question I needed to answer for myself.

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.

It's extraordinary how little two people can understand each other and how cruel two people who are fond of each other can be to each other - there is practically no cruelty so awful because their power to hurt is so great.

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

Where music thundered let the mind be still, Where the will triumphed let there be no will, What light revealed, now let the dark fulfill.

I cannot understand why poetry is not taught at schools as a way of seeing, a quick, untiring path to essentials.

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