“Guilt keeps people imprisoned in themselves.”

I’ve felt as if I didn’t exist, as if I were invisible, miles away from the world, miles away. You can’t imagine how much alone I’ve been all my life.

There is no beyond, there is only here, the infinitely small, infinitely great and utterly demanding present.

How huge it is, how empty, this great space for which I have been longing all my life. Still no letters.

Those who hope, by retiring from the world, to earn a holiday from human frailty, in themselves and others, are usually disappointed.

Let us not waste love, it is rare enough.

I think being a woman is like being Irish, Everyone says you’re important and nice, but you take second place all the time.

There is no substitute for the comfort supplied by the utterly taken-for-granted relationship.

Of course reading and thinking are important but, my God, food is important too.

I feel half faded away like some figure in the background of an old picture.

Between saying and doing, many a pair of shoes is worn out.

I just enjoy translating, it’s like opening one’s mouth and hearing someone else’s voice emerge.

Every artist is an unhappy lover. And unhappy lovers want to tell their story.

Every man needs two women, a quiet home-maker, and a thrilling nymph.

Emotions really exist at the bottom of the personality or at the top. in the middle they are acted. This is why all the world is a stage.

Youth is a marvelous garment.

The most essential and fundamental aspect of culture is the study of literature, since this is an education in how to picture and understand human situations.

I’d rather believe in my own choice and see it all go wrong than do something I’m not fully convinced of and later feel guilty about it.

Overcoming guilt, its the first step to doing it again.

Guilt is cancer. Guilt will confine you, torture you, destroy you as an artist. It’s a black wall. It’s a thief.

Never let us be guilty of sacrificing any portion of truth on the altar of peace.

Sometimes you can’t prioritise family and you feel guilty.

Fear and guilt are your only enemies. If you let go of fear, fear lets go of you. If you release guilt, guilt will release you. How do you do that? By deciding to.

If your pride leads you to boast, you will be doubly guilty, because your intelligence will have shown that it is incapable of controlling your pride.

Only the guilty are guilty: the children of killers are not killers, but children.