But to write - that is grief and labor; and to read what one has written - how unlike the story as one saw it; how dull, how spirtless - that is enough to send one weeping to bed.

Remorse ... is one of the many afflictions for which time finds a cure.

A sense of humor is so handy, isn't it? It lets you see both sides of a question so that you never need do anything.

I advise nobody to drown sorrow in cocoa. It is bad for the figure and it does not alleviate the sorrow.

The only difficulty is to know what bits to choose and what to leave out. Novel-writing is not creation, it is selection.

the damned book I am writing is like the driveling of a weak-kneed sea calf. If I were sufficiently strong minded, I should tear it up an start again. But I don't.

Is this the final treachery of time, that the old become a burden upon the young?