But the English do not know what surprise is. No one ever turns his head to look at anyone else in the street.

Over my real sorrows I never weep.

My vocation is to write and I have known this for a long time. I hope I won't be misunderstood; I know nothing about the value of the things I am able to write. I know that writing is my vocation. When I sit down to write I feel extraordinarily at ease, and I move in an element which, it seems to me, I know extraordinarily well; I use tools that are familiar to me and they fit snugly in my hands. But when I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.

And we are a people without tears. The things that moved our parents do not move us at all.

When I write stories I am like someone who is in her own country, walking along streets that she has known since she was a child, between walls and trees that are hers.

Being moderate with oneself and generous with others; this is what is meant by having a just relationship with money, by being free as far as money is concerned.

The English have no imagination: and yet they do show imagination in two things - two only. In the evening-clothes worn by old ladies, and in their cafés.