For a young man to start his career with a love affair with an older woman was quite de rigueur ... Of course, it must not go on for too long. An apprenticeship was a very different thing from a career.
Vita Sackville-West[On writing:] The most egotistic of occupations, and the most gratifying while it lasts.
Vita Sackville-WestSuccessful gardening is not necessarily a question of wealth, it is a question of love, taste, and knowledge.
Vita Sackville-WestWomen, like men, ought to have their years so glutted with freedom that they hate the very idea of freedom.
Vita Sackville-WestHow subtle is the relationship between the traveler and his luggage! He knows, as no one else knows, its idiosyncrasies, its contents ... and always some small nuisance which he wishes he had not brought; had known, indeed, before starting that he would regret it, but brought it all the same.
Vita Sackville-Westa letter, by its arrival, defrauds us of a whole secret region of our existence, the only region indeed in which the true pleasure of life may be tasted, the region of imagination, creative and protean, the clouds and beautiful shapes of whose heaven are destroyed by the wind of reality.
Vita Sackville-West