You can't argue with a raging want. You can, but it is useless.

If the novel is dying, I see no chance that dismembering it will revive it.

The impossible talked of is less impossible from the moment words are laid to it.

The hunger of the spirit for eternity - as fierce as a starving man's for bread - is much less a craving to go on living than a craving for redemption. Oh, and a protest against absurdity.

My mind is not suited to go much into company.

The past is able to close round certain moments, as if they were seeds, and deliver them again fresh and living in the present.

giving the utmost of herself to three absorbing interests [marriage, motherhood, career] ... was a problem for a superwoman, and a job for a superwoman, and only some such fabled being could have accomplished it with success.