I don’t consider myself a real peeper – they go in for bedrooms, but it’s families in sitting rooms or kitchens that thrill me. I can imagine their entire lives from a glimpse of bookshelves, or desks, or lit candles, or bright sofa cushions.
Miss X has always been a ditherer – she was a ten month baby and has not improved in any material way since then.
We read books, talked books, argued over books and became dearer and dearer to one another.
I much prefer whining to counting my blessings.
I sometimes think I prefer suitors in books rather than right in front of me. How awful, backward, cowardly, and mentally warped that will be if it turns out to be true.
He had no imagination either-fatal for one engaged in child-rearing.
Reading keeps you from going ga-ga.
Humour is the best way to make the unbearable bearable.
Those times, I tried to think of something happy, something I’d liked – but not something I loved, for that made it worse.
I don’t know whether to feel flattered or hunted.
I hope, too, that my book will illuminate my belief that love of art – be it poetry, storytelling, painting, sculpture, or music – enables people to transcend any barrier man has yet devised.
When I got up this morning the sea was full of sun pennies – and now it all seems to be covered in lemon scrim. Writers ought to live far inland or next to the city dump, if they are ever to get any work one. Or perhaps they need to be stronger-minded than I am.
Women like poetry. A soft word in their ears and they melt – a grease spot on the grass.
Light griefs are loquacious, but the great are dumb.
People don’t know how chickens can turn on you, but they can – just like mad dogs.
His writings have made me his friend.
This obsession with dignity can ruin your life if you let it.
Do you suppose the St. Swithin’s furnace-man was my one true love? Since I never spoke to him, it seems unlikely, but at least it was a passion unscathed by disappointment.
The first rule of snooping is to come at it sideways.
Friends, show me a man who hates himself, and I’ll show you a man who hates his neighbors more! He’d have to – you’d not grant anyone else something you can’t have for yourself – no love, no kindness, no respect!
Isola doesn’t approve of small talk and believes in breaking the ice by stomping on it.