“I'd far rather leave a thought behind me than a child. Other people can have children.”

“The crime of suicide lies rather in its disregard for the feelings of those whom we leave behind.”

“It is only that people are far more different than is pretended. All over the world men and women are worrying because they cannot develop as they are supposed to develop. Here and there they have the matter out, and it comforts them. Don't fret yourself, Helen. Develop what you have; love your child. I do not love children. I am thankful to have none. I can play with their beauty and charm, but that is all - nothing real, not one scrap of what there ought to be. And others - others go farther still, and move outside humanity altogether. A place, as well as a person, may catch the glow. Don't you see that all this leads to comfort in the end? It is part of the battle against sameness. Differences - eternal differences, planted by God in a single family, so that there may always be colour; sorrow, perhaps, but colour in the daily grey.”

“I have only got down on to paper, really, three types of people: the person I think I am, the people who irritate me, and the people I'd like to be.”

“I would rather be a coward than brave because people hurt you when you are brave.”

“But it was the stupidity of passion, which would rather have nothing than a little.”

“Why children?' he asked. 'Why always children? For love to end where it begins is far more beautiful, and Nature knows it.”