Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.
I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.
I only want to write. And there’s no college for that except life.
Just to be in love seemed the most blissful luxury I had ever known. The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return – that perhaps true loving can never know anything but true happiness.
Thinking of death–strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off–made me feel happier than ever.
Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.
I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.
Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they’re complete, not leading anywhere.
My God – it’s a green child!” said the American. “What is this place – the House of Usher?
Rose doesn’t like the flat country, but I always did – flat country seems to give the sky such a chance.
And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.
There is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.
… there is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love. And most of those minds are shut to what marriage really means.
It isn’t a bit of use my pretending I’m not crying, because I am… Pause to mop up. Better now.Perhaps it would really be rather dull to be married and settled for life. Liar! It would be heaven.
I wonder if there isn’t a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?
I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.
Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper.
Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.
The family – that dear octopus from whose tentacles we never quite escape, nor, in our inmost hearts, ever quite wish to.
…I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.
I am not so sure I should like the facts of life, but I have got over the bitter disappointment I felt when I first heard about them,…
I go backwards and forwards, recapturing the past, wondering about the future—and, most unreasonably, I find myself longing for the past more than for the future.
I am surprised to see how much I have written; with stories even a page can take me hours, but the truth seems to flow out as fast as I can get it down. But words are very inadequate – anyway, my words are.
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is a summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?
My imagination longs to dash ahead and plan developments; but I have noticed that when things happen in one’s imagination, they never happen in one’s life.
Oh, it was an artful place–it must make people who have money want to spend it madly!
There was a wonderful atmosphere of gentle age, a smell of flowers and beeswax, sweet yet faintly sour and musty; a smell that makes you feel very tender towards the past.
A thousand pounds for clothes–when on thinks how long poor people could live on it! When one thinks how long we could live on it, for that matter!
The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return – that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness.
Then I told myself that as I never gave the Church a thought when I was feeling happy, I could hardly expect it to do anything for me when I wasn’t. You can’t get insurance money without paying in premiums.
Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is already created, by the first cause—call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found.
I couldn’t make it out – why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you’re in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself for.
We were restless for ages…After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice. I love owls, but I wish God had made them vegetarian.
And who says you always have to understand things? You can like them without understanding them — like ’em better sometimes.
Your pain and anger will pass, but the guilt would remain with you for always.
Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with ‘I love you, I love you’– like father’s page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper.
I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame…
Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one…I can well believe it.
…[I]f I don’t get going soon, the whole impetus may die—and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge into insanity. Sometimes the abyss yawns very attractively.
…[P]erhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return—that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness.
Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much as a twig was stirring.
That little glow of comfort lasted me right through the evening but was gone when I woke up next morning. Wakings are the worst times–almost before my eyes are open a great weight seems to roll on to my heart.
When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it – or rather, it is like living it. It makes reading so much more exciting
When I imagine changing places with her I get the feeling I do on finishing a novel with a brick-wall happy ending—I mean the kind of ending when you never think any more about the characters.
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.
I have found that sitting in a place where you have never sat before can be inspiring.
Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.