I believe that the main thing in beginning a novel is to feel, not that you can write it, but that it exists on the far side of a gulf, which words can't cross: that it's to be pulled through only in a breathless anguish.

Death is woven in with the violets,” said Louis. “Death and again death.”)

Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for elderly people, that this was life?--startling, unexpected, unknown?

war is a man's game ... the killing machine has a gender and it is male.

Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us.

The truth is, I often like women. I like their unconventionality. I like their completeness. I like their anonymity.

And yet, the only exciting life is the imaginary one.