Thinking is my fighting.

Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action.

to write a novel in the heart of London is next to an impossibility. I feel as if I were nailing a flag to the top of a mast in a raging gale.

Speech is an old torn net, through which the fish escape as one casts it over them.

Am I too fast, too facile? I do not know. I do not know myself sometimes, or how to measure and name and count out the grains that make me what I am.

To enjoy freedom we have to control ourselves.

What is a woman? I assure you, I do not know ... I do not believe that anybody can know until she has expressed herself in all the arts and professions open to human skill.