The French, the Italians, the Germans, the Spanish and the English have spent centuries killing each other.
The humblest craft that floats makes its appeal to a seaman by the faithfulness of her life.
The belief in a supernatural source of evil is not necessary; men alone are quite capable of every wickedness.
Being a woman is a terribly difficult task, since it consists principally in dealing with men.
I don't like work. . . but I like what is in work - the chance to find yourself. Your own reality - for yourself, not for others - which no other man can ever know.
You must squeeze out of yourself every sensation, every thought, every image, - mercilessly, without reserve and without remorse: you must search the darkest corners of your heart, the most remote recesses of your brain, - you must search them for the image, for the glamour, for the right expression. And you must do it sincerely, at any cost: you must do it so that at the end of your day's work you should feel exhausted, emptied of every sensation and every thought, with a blank mind and an aching heart, with the notion that there is nothing, - nothing left in you.
If you don't make mistakes, you don't make anything.
A career path is rarely a path at all. A more interesting life is usual a more crooked, winding path of missteps, luck and vigorous work. It is almost always a clumsy balance between the things you try to make happen and the things that happen to you.
Like a tropical storm, I, too, may one day become ‘better organized.
Never fall in love with an idea. They're whores.
Actual patriotism has to do with loving a place enough to try and improve it.