Here life goes on, even and monotonous on the surface, full of lightning, of summits and of despair, in its depths. We have now arrived at a stage in life so rich in new perceptions that cannot be transmitted to those at another stage - one feels at the same time full of so much gentleness and so much despair - the enigma of this life grows, grows, drowns one and crushes one, then all of a sudden in a supreme moment of light one becomes aware of the sacred.

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. . . .

Wrinkles here and there seem unimportant compared to the Gestalt of the whole person I have become in this past year.

In a total work, the failures have their not unimportant place.

When one's not writing poems - and I'm not at the moment - you wonder how you ever did it. It's like another country you can't reach.

May we agree that private life is irrelevant? Multiple, mixed, ambiguous at best - out of it we try to fashion the crystal clear, the singular, the absolute, and that is what is relevant; that is what matters.

True gardeners cannot bear a glove Between the sure touch and the tender root.