…I could never explain how the image and the reality merge, and how they somehow extend and beautify each other.

Father says hot water can be as stimulating as an alcoholic drink and though I never come by one…I can well believe it.

We were restless for ages…After a while I heard an owl hooting and calmed myself by thinking of it flying over the dark fields – and then I remembered it would be pouncing on mice....

Art could state very little – it’s whole business is to evoke responses.

How I wish I lived in a Jane Austen novel!

I wonder if there isn’t a catch about having plenty of money? Does it eventually take the pleasure out of things?

Everything in the least connected with him has value for me; if someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me–and I long to mention it myself, I start subjects leading...

Perhaps watching someone you love suffer can teach you even more than suffering yourself can.

I couldn’t make it out – why you ever let me, I mean. I understand now. Things like that happen when you’re in love with the wrong person. Worse things. Things you never forgive yourself...

When I read a book, I put in all the imagination I can, so that it is almost like writing the book as well as reading it – or rather, it is like living it....

Why is summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

I could marry the Devil himself if he had some money.

Stew’s so comforting on a rainy day.

I am a restlessness inside a stillness inside a restlessness.

Of course, he sees creation as discovery. I mean, everything is already created, by the first cause—call it God if you like; everything is already there to be found.

…he talked quite naturally while we ate — about the difficulty of finding words to describe the luminous mist, and why one has the desire to describe beauty.”Perhaps it’s an attempt to possess it,” I...

She is a famous artists’ model who claims to have been christened Topaz – even if this is true there is no law to make a woman stick to a name like that.

Did you think of anything when Miss Marcy said Scoatney Hall was being re-opened? I thought of the beginning of Pride and Prejudice – where Mrs. Bennet says ‘Netherfield Park is let a last.’ And...

Certain unique books seem to be without forerunners or successors as far as their authors are concerned. Even though they may profoundly influence the work of other writers, for their creator they’re complete, not leading...

I only want to write. And there’s no college for that except life.

Only half a page left now. Shall I fill it with ‘I love you, I love you’– like father’s page of cats on the mat? No. Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of...

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.

I suppose the best kind of spring morning is the best weather God has to offer.

Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression.

Once I really looked at the sky, I wanted to go on looking; it seemed to draw me towards it and make me listen hard, though there was nothing to listen to, not so much...

Truthfulness so often goes with ruthlessness.

I have really sinned. I am going to pause now, and sit here on the mound repenting in deepest shame…

But some characters in books are really real–Jane Austen’s are; and I know those five Bennets at the opening of Pride and Prejudice, simply waiting to raven the young men at Netherfield Park, are not...

So many of the loveliest things in England are melancholy.

Prayer’s a very tricky business.

Thinking of death–strange, beautiful, terrible and a long way off–made me feel happier than ever.

I wanted so terribly to be good to him.

There is something revolting about the way girls’ minds so often jump to marriage long before they jump to love.

Am I really admitting that my sister is determined to marry a man she has only seen once and doesn’t much like the look of? It is half real and half pretense – and I...

A mist is rolling over the fields. Why is a summer mist romantic and autumn mist just sad?

I suddenly knew that religion, God – something beyond everyday life – was there to be found, provided one is really willing. And I saw that though what I felt in the church was only...

No, that was my privilege.

I like seeing people when they can’t see me.

The Devil’s out of fashion.

Now, paper and pencils,” said Miss Marcy, clapping her hands.Writing paper is scarce in this house, and I had no intention of tearing sheets out of this exercise book, which is a superb sixpenny one...

Perhaps if I make myself write I shall find out what is wrong with me.

And what I thought most about was luxury. I had never realised before that it is more than just having things; it makes the very air feel different. And I felt different, breathing the air:...

Even a broken heart doesn’t warrant a waste of good paper.

Your pain and anger will pass, but the guilt would remain with you for always.

The thought came to me that perhaps it is the loving that counts, not the being loved in return – that perhaps true loving can never know anything but happiness.

I think it [religion] is an art, the greatest one; an extension of the communion all the other arts attempt.

If someone even mentions his name it is like a little present to me – and I long to mention it myself. I start subjects leading up to it, and then I feel myself going...

Cruel blows of fate call for extreme kindness in the family circle.

He laughed a little, in an odd, nervous kind of way. “Because if I don’t get going soon, the whole impetus may die–and if that happens, well, I really shall consider a long, restful plunge...

I didn’t make any mistake. I know that when he nearly asked me to marry him it was only on impulseIt is part if a follow-my-leader game of second-best we have all been playing –...