It seemed to her that she had never known what the night was like before. Up till now it had been dark, silent, beautiful very often - oh yes - but mournful somehow. Solemn. And now it would never be like that again - it had opened dazzling bright.

I have faded into the habit of secretly existing under your skin. It is unbelievably dark under there; I am happy.

The English language is damned difficult, but it's also damned rich, and so clear and bright that you can search out the darkest places with it.

This is not a letter but my arms around you for a brief moment.

The whole world shall be ours because of our love.

What did garden-parties and baskets and lace frocks matter to him? He was far from all those things. He was wonderful, beautiful.

The truth is that every true admirer of the novels cherishes the happy thought that he alone - reading between the lines - has become the secret friend of their author.

What is it with me? Am I absolutely nobody, but merely inordinately vain? I do not know…. But I am most fearfully unhappy. That is all. I am so unhappy that I wish I was dead—yet I should be mad to die when I have not yet lived at all.

She had become really quite expert, she thought, at listening as though she didn't listen, at sitting in other people's lives just for a minute while they talked round her.

The lights, the azaleas, the dresses, the pink faces, the velvet chairs, all became one beautiful flying wheel.

Oh, how quickly things changed! Why didn't happiness last for ever? For ever wasn't a bit too long.

The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, a pool that nobody's fathomed the depth of, and paths threaded with flowers planted by the mind.

You are a Queen. Let mine be the joy of giving you your kingdom.

Ach, Tchekov! Why are you dead? Why can't I talk to you in a big darkish room at late evening—where the light is green from the waving trees outside? I'd like to write a series of Heavens: that would be one.

You know the feeling that a great writer gives you: my spirit has been fed and refreshed; it has partaken of something new.

I am poor - obscure - just eighteen years of age - with a rapacious appetite for everything and principles as light as my purse.

Some couples go over their budgets very carefully every month. Others just go over them.

Oh but I want to be a bee frightfully,' wailed Kezia... A tiny bee, all yellow-furry, with striped legs. She drew her legs up under her and leaned over the table. She felt she was a bee.

There were all her feelings for him, sharp and defined, one as true as the other. And there was the other, this hatred, just as real as the rest. She could have done her feelings up in little packets and given them to Stanley. She longed to hand him that last one, for a surprise. She could see his eyes as he opened that...

I long to do wild, passionate things.

I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

I always felt that the great high privilege, relief and comfort of friendship, was that one had to explain nothing.

Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different.

Their first words always were as they ran to greet him, "What have you got for me, daddy?" and he had nothing. He would have to buy them some sweets at the station. But that was what he had done for the past four Saturdays; their faces had fallen last time when they saw the same old boxes produced again.

Always with that magical child air about her, that delightful sense of perpetually attending a party.

The heavens opened for the sunset to-night. When I had thought the day folded and sealed, came a burst of heavenly bright petals.

When we begin to take our failures non-seriously, it means we are ceasing to be afraid of them.

I am a recluse at present & do nothing but write & read & read & write.

Oh, impossible. Fancy cream puffs so soon after breakfast. The very idea made one shudder. All the same, two minutes later Jose and Laura were licking their fingers with that absorbed inward look that only comes from whipped cream.

Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

Laura's upbringing made her wonder for a moment whether it was quite respectful of a workman to talk to her of bangs slap in the eye. But she did quite follow him.

Leila was sure ifhe partner didn't come and she had to listen to that marvellous music and to watch the others sliding, gliding over the golden floor, she would die at least, or faint, or lift her arms and fly out of one of those dark windows that showed the stars.

Do you ever want to hide, to be completely hidden so that nobody knows where you are. Sometimes one has a dreadful feeling of exposure–it's intolerable. I mustn't say these things.

I saw myself driving through Eternity in a timeless taxi.

Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.

I imagine I was always writing. Twaddle it was, too. But better far write twaddle or anything, anything, than nothing at all.

Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

Would you not like to try all sorts of lives - one is so very small - but that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

But that is the satisfaction of writing - one can impersonate so many people.

I want, by understanding myself, to understand others. I want to be all that I am capable of becoming.

Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinions of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth.

What do you want most to do? That's what I have to keep asking myself, in the face of difficulties.

I have made it a rule of my life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy... you can't build on it; it's only good for wallowing in.

EM Forster never gets any further than warming the tea pot... Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain't going to be no tea.

I am treating you as my friend, asking you to share my present minuses in the hope that I can ask you to share my future plusses.

When Harry came I had his letters all ready, and the ring and a ducky little brooch he'd given me—a silver bird it was, with a chain in its beak, and on the end of the chain a heart with a dagger.

Very early morning. The sun was not yet risen, and the whole of Crescent Bay was hidden under a white sea-mist. The big bush-covered hills at the back were smothered. You could not see where they ended and the paddocks and bungalows began.

I can never be perfectly certain whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella. All things considered, I think it must have been the umbrella.

The most thrilling day of the year, the first real day of Spring had enclosed its warm delicious beauty even to London eyes. It had put a spangle in every colour and a new tone in every voice, and city folks walked as though they carried real bodies under their clothes with real live hearts pumping the still blood through.