The spring without a leaf to toss, bare and bright like a virgin fierce in her chastity, scornful in her purity, was laid out on fields wide-eyed and watchful and entirely careless of what was done or thought by the beholders.

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

writing is the profound pleasure and being read the superficial.

For books continue each other, in spite of our habit of judging them separately.

Thus when I come to shape here at this table between my hands the story of my life and set it before you as a complete thing, I have to recall things gone far, gone deep, sunk into this life or that and become part of it; dreams, too, things surrounding me, and the inmates, those old half-articulate ghosts who keep up their hauntings by day and night... shadows of people one might have been; unborn selves.

You cannot cross the narrow bridge of art carrying all its tools in your hands. Some you must leave behind.

Never let anybody guess that you have a mind of your own. Above all be pure