If you don't keep and guard and mature your force, and above all, have time and quiet to perfect your work, you will be writing things not much better than you did five years ago.

Only a Woman, divine, could know all that a woman can suffer.

A work-room should be like an old shoe; no matter how shabby, it's better than a new one.

A pioneer should have imagination, should be able to enjoy the idea of things more than the things themselves.

The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the artist, the great artist, knows how difficult it is.

When kindness has left people, even for a few moments, we become afraid of them as if their reason had left them. When it has left a place where we have always found it, it is like shipwreck; we drop from security into something malevolent and bottomless.

In great misfortunes, people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love--if once one has ever fallen in.