She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimmer to water. But after finishing the last sentence she was left with a feeling at once hollow and uncomfortably full. Exactly like indigestion.

"The feeling of Sunday is the same everywhere, heavy, melancholy, standing still. Like when they say, "As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end."

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

Age seldom arrives smoothly or quickly. It's more often a succession of jerks.

"I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and one that is broken, sad as a woman who is growing old."