Neither of us knows what the public will think. There's no doubt in my mind that I have found out how to begin (at forty) to say something in my own voice; and that interests me so that I feel I can go ahead without praise.

I want to think quietly, calmly, spaciously, never to be interrupted, never to have to rise from my chair, to slip easily from one thing to another, without any sense of hostility, or obstacle. I want to sink deeper and deeper, away from the surface, with its hard separate facts.

I am tied down with single words. But you wander off; you slip away; you rise up higher, with words and words in phrases.

I mean it's the writing, not the being read, that excites me.

I worship you, but I loathe marriage. I hate its smugness, its safety, its compromise and the thought of you interfering with my work, hindering me; what would you answer?

Great bodies of people are never responsible for what they do.

These moments of escape are not to be despised. They come too seldom.