Our generation will not have regretted both perverse crimes, and the eerie silence of the kind
The past is perpetual youth to the heart.
The truth is, we never make for others the allowance we make for ourselves; and we should deny even our own words, could we hear them spoken by another.
A friend is never alarmed for us in the right place.
There is no wretchedness like self-reproach.
Truly, a little love-making is a very pleasant thing.
Whenever I hear a man talking of the advantages of our ill-used sex, I look upon it as the prelude to some new act of authority.
We read, we travel, we become.
The water was not fit to drink. To make it palatable, we had to add whisky. By diligent effort, I learned to like it.
If you want to be considered a poet, you will have to show mastery of the petrarchan sonnet form or the sestina. Your musical efforts must begin with well-formed fugues. There is no substitute for craft. . . Art begins with craft, and there is no art until craft has been mastered.
For me writing has always felt like praying even when I wasn't writing prayers.