“How is a gun better than a man? If you admire a friend's pistol she'll probably let you try it out.”

“Discretion is the survival one needs around friends who admires you but hate your hapiness and success, and would do anything so that you are not up to them or better than them.”

“It is better to taste than to admire, I assure you.”

“But understanding will always require some effort. You probably wouldn't admire a friend who was good at everything if it cost her no effort.”

“So you got rid of your astonishment that someone could write so much more dynamically than you. You stopped cherishing your aloneness and poetic differentness to your delicately flat little bosom. You said: she's to good to forget. How about making her a friend and competitor — you could learn alot from her. So you'll try. So maybe she'll laugh in your face. So maybe she'll beat you hollow in the end. So anyhow, you'll try, and maybe, possibly, she can stand you. Here's hoping!”

“...she'll cry, and if she does, I probably will, and then she'll have found a way in, and I will not let her pierce my walls in a Trojan horse of sympathy.”