"Oh, something is there, waiting for me. Perhaps someday the revelation will burst in upon me and I will see the other side of this monumental grotesque joke. And then I'll laugh. And then I'll know what life is."
"I like people too much or not at all. I've got to go down deep, to fall into people, to really know them."
"And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter— they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long."
"All, all, becomes profitable. Education is of the most satisfying and available nature. I am at Smith! Which two years ago was a doubtful dream - and that fortuitous change of dream to reality has led me to desire more, and to lash myself onward - onward."
"But writing poems and letters doesn't seem to do much good."
"I don't see,' I said, 'how people stand being old. Your insides all dry up. When you're young you're so self-reliant. You don't even need much religion."