“I wish to try my hand at a novel," he said. "Just scribbling, I assure you, but it strikes me as such a noble art, requiring none of the monetary resources of opera or drama, nor the erudition of poetry. Perchance a publisher could be found. I'd be satisfied by the printing of even a score of copies, if only to hold the bound work in my hands. It gives a unique satisfaction, I assume, the writing of a novel.”

“I asked my publisher what would happen if he sold all the copies of my book he'd printed. He said "I'll just print another ten.”

“I swear, Papa, I'd give my virtue if it would get my novels published,' she exclaimed in vexation. 'I'm certain we've tried everything else.”

“It was only after two years' work that it occurred to me that I was a writer. I had no particular expectation that the novel would ever be published, because it was sort of a mess. It was only when I found myself writing things I didn't realise I knew that I said, 'I'm a writer now.' The novel had become an incentive to deeper thinking. That's really what writing is—an intense form of thought.”

“Do you write novels?" I said."Novels, Lord no," she said. "I can't even stay married.”

“When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand, …Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further, I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave, But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied, He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me. ”