"Among the letters my readers write me, there is a certain category which is continuously growing, and which I see as a symptom of the increasing intellectualization of the relationship between readers and literature"

"A lawyer without history or literature is a mechanic, a mere working mason; if he possesses some knowledge of these, he may venture to call himself an architect"

"I don't know which is more discouraging, literature or chickens"

"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation"

"Sister is probably the most competitive relationship within the family, but once the sisters are grown, it becomes the strongest relationship"

"What is wonderful about great literature is that it transforms the man who reads it towards the condition of the man who wrote"

"Hence my obstinate emphasis on stylistic continuity from work to work rather than specific sibling relationships between the individual work and other members of its stylistic 'family' in the world outside"

"The one who loves the least, controls the relationship"

"I really take pride in the relationship that I have with my husband"

"Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it"

"The mother-child relationship is paradoxical and, in a sense, tragic. It requires the most intense love on the mother's side, yet this very love must help the child grow away from the mother, and to become fully independent"