I saw the days of the year stretching ahead like a series of bright, white boxes, and separating one box from another was sleep, like a black shade. Only for me, the long perspective of shades that set off one box from the next day had suddenly snapped up, and I could see day after day after day glaring ahead of me like a white, broad, infinitely desolate avenue.

The trouble was, I had been inadequate all along, I simply hadn't thought about it.

I feel self-repressed again. The old fall disease. Where is my willpower? The idea of a life gets in the way of my life...I dream too much, work too little.

If the body is a temple, then tattoos are its stained glass windows.

August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.

I decided I would put off the novel until I had gone to Europe and had a lover, and that I would never learn a word of shorthand. If I never learned shorthand I would never have to use it.

It is a terrible thing to be so open: it is as if my heart put on a face and walked into the world.