“He always wrote on the flyleaf of each new book the date and where he was, so I can follow him: reading Chesterton just after they were married in November 1929, Scottish poets the following spring.”

“He seems to read nothing but my books, and says his one desire is to 'follow in my footsteps'! But I have told him that they lead to terrible places.”

“I wanted him to be a poet. I wanted him to adventure out into the world and learn its ways, not losing himself in the jumble of life but seeing it in the poet's eye, and withdrawing after in the library room where he could write his poems of revelation. He would tell what he had seen. He never wrote a word in his life. But he did see.”

“He believes me. But that is nothing new. He always did because I was a rule follower. I played by the rules he understood. But there are new rules now, ones he doesn't know yet. He'll learn. Just as I'm learning.”

“Read the inscription," he said. I opened the book. On the flyleaf it said: "To Hilda, so that on the day we part the substance of my hopes for the future and my predestined struggle will remain with you. Ernesto 20-1-55.”

“Always carry a book on a date so that when you get bored you can slip into the Ladies for a read.”