I like shape very much. A novel has to have shape, and life doesn't have any..

I took the red dress down and put it against myself. 'Does it make me look intemperate and unchaste?' I said..

As it was in the beginning, ... is now, and ever shall be, world without end..

The musty smell, the bugs, the lonliness, this room, which is part of the street outside-this is all I want from life..

After all this, what happened? What happened was that, as soon as I had the slightest chance of a place to hide in, I crept into it and hid. Well, so….

We can't all be happy, we can't all be rich, we can't all be lucky - and it would be so much less fun if we were... There must be the dark background….

I found when I was a child that if I put the hurt into words, it would go..

When I think about it, if I had to choose, I'd rather be happy than write..

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. The only difficulty was that after f….

Sometimes the Earth trembles; sometimes you can feel it breathe..

Some must cry so that others may be able to laugh the more heartily. Sacrifices are necessary..

London is like a cold dark dream sometimes..

I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to my….

I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness..

I'm no use to anybody,' I say. 'I'm a cérébrale, can't you see that?' Thinking how funny a book would be, called 'Just a Cérébrale or You Can't Stop ….

If I was bound for hell, let it be hell. No more false heaven. No more damned magic..

She had left me thirsty and all my life would be thirst and longing for what I had lost before I found it..

The rumble of the life outside was like the sound of the sea which was rising gradually around her..

It's funny, he said, have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?.

All of writing is a huge lake. There are great rivers that feed the lake, like Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky. And then there are mere trickles, like Jean Rh….

You imagine the carefully pruned, shaped thing that is presented to you is truth. That is just what it isn't. The truth is improbable, the truth is f….