All this pitting of sex against sex, of quality against quality; all this claiming of superiority and imputing of inferiority belong to the private-school stage of human existence where there are sides, and it is necessary for one side to beat another side.

When an arguer argues dispassionately he thinks only of the argument.

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

The mind of an artist, in order to achieve the prodigious effort of freeing whole and entire the work that is in him, must be incandescent...there must be no obstacle in it, no foreign matter unconsumed.

The habit of writing for my eye is good practice. It loosens the ligaments.

First a warning, musical; then the hour, irrevocable. The leaden circles dissolved in the air.

We read Charlotte Bronte not for exquisite observation of character - her characters are vigorous and elementary; not for comedy - hers is grim and crude; not for a philosophic view of life - hers is that of a country parson's daughter; but for her poetry. Probably that is so with all writers who have, as she has, an overpowering personality, so that, as we say in real life, they have only to open the door to make themselves felt.