“We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to.”

“we do not write as we want but as we can”

“I don't know that in life it matters so much what you do as what you are. No one can learn by the experience of another because no circumstances are quite the same. If we made rather a hash of things perhaps it was because we were rather trivial people.”

“What do we any of us have but our illusions? And what do we ask of others but that we be allowed to keep them?”

“Unconsciously, perhaps, we treasure the power we have over people by their regard for our opinion of them, and we hate those upon whom we have no such influence.”

“I wonder if it matters that what they have aimed at is illusion. Their lives are in themselves beautiful. I have an idea that the only thing which makes it possible to regard this world we live in without disgust is the beauty which now and then men create out of the chaos. The pictures they paint, the music they compose, the books they write, and the lives they lead. Of all these the richest in beauty is the beautiful life. That is the perfect work of art.”

“Sometimes I think that when we say our honour prevents us from doing this or that we deceive ourselves, and our real motive is vanity.”