The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.

to know how to read is to light a lamp in the mind, to release the soul from prison, to open a gate to the universe." from Pavilion of Women page 292

No daughter is ever her mother's darling. That spot is always reserved for the son.

Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident. Get your reward out of writing it, and try to be content with that.

Love cannot be forced, love cannot be coaxed and teased. It comes out of heaven, unasked and unsought.

Just about everything significant in my life happened after I passed forty. I was a housewife and mother, but yearned to be a writer. I worked at my writing whenever I could snatch a moment, and I assembled several manuscripts. I was just about forty when my first novel, East Wind, West Wind, was published. Then a few months later came The Good Earth. My career was launched at last, and it has given me the richest possible satisfaction

Praise out of season, or tactlessly bestowed, can freeze the heart as much as blame.