“I like seeing people when they can't see me.”

“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 I can't see how anyone could believe that you killed the bear with a pitchfork,' I said.'I didn't. I only wounded it - badly, I think, but not enough to put it out of action. It came blundering towards me, I stepped aside and it crashed head-first into the river - I could hear it threshing about in the darkness. I picked up a big stone - poor brute, I hated to do it but I had to finish it off. It gave just one groan as the stone hit it and then went down. I held the lantern high; I could see the bubbles coming up. And then I saw the dark bulk of it under the water, being carried along by the current.''But you didn't have a lantern,' I said.'He didn't have a bear,' said Topaz.”

“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, but I don't suppose many people try to do it.”

“Oh I daresay she can't help it - she's one of the women who oughn't be loved too kindly when they are some primitive desire for brutality makes them try to provoke it.”

“My hand is very tired but I want to go on writing. I keep resting and thinking. All day I have been two people - the me imprisoned in yesterday and the me out here on the mound; and now there is a third me trying to get in - the me in what is going to happen next.”

“But her voice sounded wistful. It is one of her theories that a woman must never be jealous, never try to hold man against his will; but I could tell that she hadn't enjoyed seeing someone else bring father to life.”