It is fatal to be a man or woman pure and simple: one must be a woman manly, or a man womanly.

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

I feel my brains, like a pear, to see if it's ripe; it will be exquisite by September.

It was as if someone had taken a tiny bead of pure life and decking it as lightly as possible with down and feathers, had set it dancing and zigzagging to show us the true nature of life.

Better was it to go unknown and leave behind you an arch, then to burn like a meteor and leave no dust.

When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.

And when we are writing the life of a woman, we may, it is agreed, waive our demand for action, and substitute love instead. Love, the poet has said, is a woman's whole existence.