“It seems to me as natural and necessary to keep notes, however brief, of one's reading, as logs of voyagesor photographs of one's travels. For memory, in most of us, is a liar with galloping consumption.”

“It is unlikely that many of us will be famous, or even remembered. But not less important than the brilliant few that lead a nation or a literature to fresh achievements, are the unknown many whose patient efforts keep the world from running backward; who guard and maintain the ancient values, even if they do not conquer new; whose inconspicuous triumph it is to pass on what they inherited from their fathers, unimpaired and undiminished, to their sons. Enough, for almost all of us, if we can hand on the torch, and not let it down; content to win the affection, if it may be, of a few who know us and to be forgotten when they in their turn have vanished. The destiny of mankind is not governed wholly by its 'stars'.”

“Resta strano e quasi inesplicabile il fatto che nella città di Atene, dove le donne erano tenute in reclusione quasi orientale, come odalische o serve, il teatro abbia ugualmente prodotto figure come Clitemnestra e Cassandra, Atossa e Antigone, Fedra e Medea, e tutte le altre eroine che dominano i drammi del "misogino" Euripide. Ma il paradosso di questo mondo, in cui nella vita reale una donna rispettabile non poteva quasi farsi vedere sola per strada, e tuttavia sulla scena, la donna uguaglia e supera l'uomo, non è stato mai spiegato in modo soddisfacente. Nella tragedia moderna esiste lo stesso prodominio. Ad ogni modo, una scorsa all'opera di Shakespeare (e anche a quella di Webster, ma non di Marlowe o Jonson) basta a dimostrare che questo preodominio, questa iniziativa delle donne, persiste da Rosalind a Lady Macbeth. E' così anche in Racine; se delle sue tragedia portano il nome dell'eroina; e quale dei suoi personaggi maschili possiamo contrapporre ad Ermione e ad Andromaca, a Berenice e a Rossana, a Fedra e ad Atalia? Così di nuovo con Ibsen, quale uomo possiamo paragonare a Solveig e Nora, Hedda e Hilda Wangel e Rebecca West?”

“One of the most adventurous things left us is to go to bed. For no one can lay a hand on our dreams.”

“A lot of people like to do certain things, but they're notthat good at it. Keep going through the things that you liketo do, until you find something that you actually seem to beextremely good at. It can be anything.”

“They were at the wrong place at the wrong time naturally they became heroes”

“The preparation of good food is merely another expression of art, one of the joys of civilized living…”