Human relations just are not fixed in their orbits like the planets -- they're more like galaxies, changing all the time, exploding into light for years, then dying away.

People are always talking about the joys of youth-but, oh, how youth can suffer!

It is curious how any making of order makes one feel mentally ordered, ordered inside.

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.

I long for the bulbs to arrive, for the early autumn chores are melancholy, but the planting of bulbs is the work of hope and is always thrilling.

In the country of pain we are each alone.

The price of being oneself is so high and involves so much ruthlessness toward others (or what looks like ruthlessness in our duty-bound culture) that very few people can afford it.