Only longing can fill with more of itself.

The mind must be allowed to settle undisturbed over the object in order to secrete the pearl.

I spent an hour looking at pots and carpets in the museums the other day, until the desire to describe them became like the desire for the lusts of the flesh.

I got out this diary, & read as one always does read one's own writing, with a kind of guilty intensity.

One should aim, seriously, at disregarding ups and downs; a compliment here, silence there ... the central fact remains stable, which is the fact of my own pleasure in the art.

I am reading Henry James...and feel myself as one entombed in a block of smooth amber.

What a lark! What a plunge!