One should be a painter. As a writer, I feel the beauty, which is almost entirely colour, very subtle, very changeable, running over my pen, as if you poured a large jug of champagne over a hairpin.

Once she knows how to read there's only one thing you can teach her to believe in and that is herself.

That great Cathedral space which was childhood.

All artists need a room of their own

Habits and customs are a convenience devised for the support of timid natures who dare not allow their souls free play.

One can only believe entirely, perhaps, in what one cannot see.

And now more than anything I want beautiful prose. I relish it more and more exquisitely.