Nothing creates such untruth in you as the wish to please.

When you realize someone is trying to hurt you, it hurts less." "Unless you love them.

Children seldom have a proper sense of their own tragedy, discounting and keeping hidden the true horrors of their short lives, humbly imagining real calamity to be some prestigious drama of the grown-up world.

One would always want to think of oneself as being on the side of love, ready to recognize it and wish it well -but, when confronted with it in others, one so often resented it, questioned its true nature, secretly dismissed the particular instance as folly or promiscuity. Was it merely jealousy, or a reluctance to admit so noble and enviable a sentiment in anyone but oneself?

I have a superstition that if I talk about plot, it's like letting sand out of a hole in the bottom of a bag.

In England, life is a long process of composing oneself.

Poetry has been the longest pleasure of my life.