But poetry is not to be lived, except for the few to whom it is more important than self-preservation.

One can present people with opportunities. One cannot make them equal to them.

One must have the humility and the imagination to honor all deep human experiences - not least those one has never come near to sharing.

when two people unite, kindness must be mutual, or shocking things will happen.

[On Ian Fleming:] The trouble with Ian is that he gets off with women because he can't get on with them.

A writer works from the material she has, but it comes from the unconscious. Everything is stored up and one never knows what comes up to the surface at a given moment. A period of gestation is certainly needed, what Wordsworth called ‘emotion recollected in tranquility.’ You cannot write about an experience when you are living it, suffering it. You are too busy surviving to look at it objectively. At least I can’t.

One should always act from one's inner sense of rhythm.