Among the many problems which beset the novelist, not the least weighty is the choice of the moment at which to begin his novel.

Things were not tragic for us then, because although we cared passionately we didn't care deeply.

The writer catches the changes of his mind on the hop. Growth is exciting; growth is dynamic and alarming. Growth of the soul, growth of the mind.

It is dreadful how I miss you, and everything that everybody says seems flat and stupid.

Prose is a poor thing, a poor inadequate thing, compared with poetry which says so much more in shorter time.

Travel is in sad case. It is uncomfortable, it is expensive; it is a source of annoyance to our friends, and of loneliness to ourselves.

Violence, passion, indignation, loyalty, integrity, incorruptibility, shameless egoism, generosity, excitability, energy, a hundred horse-power drive - none of it very subtle: Ethel [Smyth] didn't deal in pastel shades, she went for the stronger colors, the blood-red, anything deep and pumping out of the arteries of the heart.