16 Quotes by Jean Stafford

To her own heart, which was shaped exactly like a valentine, there came a winglike palpitation, a delicate exigency, and all the fragrance of all the flowery springtime love affairs that ever were seemed waiting for them in the whisky bottle. To mingle their pain their handshake had promised them, was to produce a separate entity, like a child that could shift for itself, and they scrambled hastily toward this profound and pastoral experience.

A cat is a peerless poultice.

It never occurs to her that she will not be a writer and only occasionally does it occur to her, depressingly, that she is going to grow into a woman, not a man.

I read Wolfe’s new book _ The Story of a Novel_ and as usual he stole the whole damn thing from me. I am going to write and say will you please stop writing books you bastard.

He whirled round and round in his rapid love; it pricked him on the breastbone like a needle. He wanted to be shut up in a small space to think about it. He wanted to grab it and eat it like an apple so that nobody else could have it.

She did observe, with some dismay, that far from conquering all, love lazily sidestepped practical problems.

From time to time, I need a rest from the exercitation of my intellect.

For me, there is nothing worse than the knowledge that my life holds nothing for me but being a writer.

He does what I have always needed to have done to me, and that is that he dominates me.