Activity

AUGUST 15, 1941

[...] I want to sit down at a typewriter in a room all alone. I want long days to mull over what I’ve seen, silent hours to dream out stories that are as delicate, in the first plot germs, as smoke rings. And long evenings, which will be fewer now, I imagine, with Rosalind. [...]

7/29/41

What I admire most in an individual is a kind of activity—a liveliness either of mind or body or both—which alone can assure the development of the character I prefer. I believe liveliness and animal energy are the sine qua nons.

6/22/41

There are some people we like instantly, before they have even had a chance to flatter us (which is the greatest encouragement to liking a person), because they have that quality of seeing in us what we desire to be, what we are trying to be, and of not seeing that which we are at the mo…

6/21/41

We like to say it is love we search our whole life long, or we like to say it is Fame. But it is neither. It is understanding. We seek forever one other human heart we can touch and who can touch ours. We seek indefatigably like a hungry animal. For our heart is forever lonely. Forever a…

5/25/41

It’s so important that people—especially young people write some poetry during their lives. Even if it is bad poetry. Even if they think they do not like poetry or have no talent for writing it, they should write, and even badly, if it is sincere. And really sincere poetry is seldom bad …